NVIDIA (NASDAQ:NVDA) Shares Up 1.4% – Here’s What Happened

NVIDIA Co. (NASDAQ:NVDA)’s stock price was up 1.4% during mid-day trading on Friday . The stock traded as high as $138.31 and last traded at $137.14. Approximately 70,772,307 shares changed hands during trading, a decline of 74% from the average daily volume of 271,085,875 shares. The stock had previously closed at $135.29.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

Several equities research analysts have weighed in on NVDA shares. Morgan Stanley lowered their price target on NVIDIA from $166.00 to $152.00 and set an “overweight” rating for the company in a report on Tuesday, January 28th. Melius Research lifted their price objective on shares of NVIDIA from $165.00 to $185.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a research note on Monday, November 11th. Benchmark reiterated a “buy” rating and issued a $190.00 target price on shares of NVIDIA in a research report on Tuesday, January 7th. Phillip Securities reissued an “accumulate” rating and set a $160.00 price target (up from $155.00) on shares of NVIDIA in a research report on Friday, November 22nd. Finally, Stifel Nicolaus lifted their price objective on shares of NVIDIA from $165.00 to $180.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a research note on Tuesday, November 19th. Four investment analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, thirty-eight have issued a buy rating and two have assigned a strong buy rating to the company. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, the company currently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $166.23.

NVIDIA Stock Performance

The company has a market cap of $3.40 trillion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 54.64, a P/E/G ratio of 1.62 and a beta of 1.62. The stock’s fifty day simple moving average is $134.52 and its 200 day simple moving average is $130.07. The company has a current ratio of 4.10, a quick ratio of 3.64 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.13.

NVIDIA (NASDAQ:NVDA) last posted its quarterly earnings results on Wednesday, November 20th. The computer hardware maker reported $0.81 EPS for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $0.69 by $0.12. The firm had revenue of $35.08 billion during the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $33.15 billion. NVIDIA had a return on equity of 114.83% and a net margin of 55.69%. The business’s revenue for the quarter was up 93.6% on a year-over-year basis. During the same quarter last year, the firm earned $0.38 earnings per share. As a group, analysts anticipate that NVIDIA Co. will post 2.77 earnings per share for the current year.

NVIDIA Dividend Announcement

The company also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Friday, December 27th. Investors of record on Thursday, December 5th were issued a $0.01 dividend. This represents a $0.04 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 0.03%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Thursday, December 5th. NVIDIA’s dividend payout ratio is currently 1.57%.

Insiders Place Their Bets

In other NVIDIA news, Director Tench Coxe sold 1,000,000 shares of NVIDIA stock in a transaction dated Monday, December 16th. The shares were sold at an average price of $131.26, for a total transaction of $131,260,000.00. Following the completion of the sale, the director now directly owns 28,671,360 shares in the company, valued at $3,763,402,713.60. This trade represents a 3.37 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available at the SEC website. Also, EVP Ajay K. Puri sold 36,462 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Monday, January 6th. The stock was sold at an average price of $151.10, for a total transaction of $5,509,408.20. Following the completion of the transaction, the executive vice president now owns 3,902,888 shares in the company, valued at approximately $589,726,376.80. This represents a 0.93 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders have sold 1,108,348 shares of company stock valued at $146,506,958 over the last ninety days. Company insiders own 4.23% of the company’s stock.

Hedge Funds Weigh In On NVIDIA

Hedge funds and other institutional investors have recently added to or reduced their stakes in the business. FMR LLC increased its stake in shares of NVIDIA by 0.7% during the fourth quarter. FMR LLC now owns 1,004,376,608 shares of the computer hardware maker’s stock worth $134,877,735,000 after buying an additional 6,665,252 shares during the period. Geode Capital Management LLC increased its holdings in shares of NVIDIA by 1.7% in the 4th quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC now owns 555,548,278 shares of the computer hardware maker’s stock valued at $74,439,273,000 after acquiring an additional 9,468,786 shares during the last quarter. Price T Rowe Associates Inc. MD increased its stake in NVIDIA by 0.9% in the fourth quarter. Price T Rowe Associates Inc. MD now owns 411,328,951 shares of the computer hardware maker’s stock valued at $55,237,367,000 after purchasing an additional 3,721,331 shares during the last quarter. Norges Bank acquired a new stake in NVIDIA during the fourth quarter worth approximately $43,515,504,000. Finally, Northern Trust Corp lifted its position in shares of NVIDIA by 15.8% during the 4th quarter. Northern Trust Corp now owns 266,454,194 shares of the computer hardware maker’s stock worth $35,782,134,000 after buying an additional 36,266,817 shares during the last quarter. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 65.27% of the company’s stock.

NVIDIA Company Profile

NVIDIA Corporation provides graphics and compute and networking solutions in the United States, Taiwan, China, Hong Kong, and internationally. The Graphics segment offers GeForce GPUs for gaming and PCs, the GeForce NOW game streaming service and related infrastructure, and solutions for gaming platforms; Quadro/NVIDIA RTX GPUs for enterprise workstation graphics; virtual GPU or vGPU software for cloud-based visual and virtual computing; automotive platforms for infotainment systems; and Omniverse software for building and operating metaverse and 3D internet applications.