Photronics (NASDAQ:PLAB) Downgraded by Northland Securities to Market Perform

Northland Securities downgraded shares of Photronics (NASDAQ:PLAB – Get Rating) from an outperform rating to a market perform rating in a research report report published on Monday morning, The Fly reports.

Several other equities analysts have also commented on the company. StockNews.com initiated coverage on Photronics in a research report on Thursday, May 18th. They set a buy rating for the company. DA Davidson reissued a buy rating on shares of Photronics in a research report on Tuesday, April 11th.

Photronics Stock Performance

Shares of PLAB stock opened at $20.25 on Monday. The stock has a fifty day moving average of $15.81 and a 200 day moving average of $17.16. Photronics has a 52 week low of $13.86 and a 52 week high of $25.81. The firm has a market capitalization of $1.27 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 11.07 and a beta of 1.18. The company has a quick ratio of 3.25, a current ratio of 3.52 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.02.

Photronics (NASDAQ:PLAB – Get Rating) last announced its quarterly earnings results on Wednesday, May 24th. The semiconductor company reported $0.54 EPS for the quarter, topping analysts’ consensus estimates of $0.44 by $0.10. Photronics had a return on equity of 11.20% and a net margin of 13.26%. The company had revenue of $229.30 million during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $211.00 million. During the same quarter last year, the firm posted $0.49 earnings per share. The firm’s revenue was up 12.1% on a year-over-year basis. As a group, research analysts expect that Photronics will post 1.82 earnings per share for the current year.

Hedge Funds Weigh In On Photronics

Several institutional investors and hedge funds have recently added to or reduced their stakes in PLAB. BlackRock Inc. raised its position in shares of Photronics by 2.1% in the 3rd quarter. BlackRock Inc. now owns 10,238,591 shares of the semiconductor company’s stock worth $149,689,000 after purchasing an additional 208,239 shares during the last quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. raised its position in shares of Photronics by 4.1% in the 3rd quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 4,730,787 shares of the semiconductor company’s stock worth $69,165,000 after purchasing an additional 187,394 shares during the last quarter. Dimensional Fund Advisors LP raised its position in shares of Photronics by 1.3% in the 1st quarter. Dimensional Fund Advisors LP now owns 4,485,908 shares of the semiconductor company’s stock worth $74,376,000 after purchasing an additional 59,693 shares during the last quarter. State Street Corp raised its position in shares of Photronics by 1.3% in the 2nd quarter. State Street Corp now owns 2,172,450 shares of the semiconductor company’s stock worth $42,319,000 after purchasing an additional 27,683 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Prudential Financial Inc. raised its position in shares of Photronics by 48.4% in the 3rd quarter. Prudential Financial Inc. now owns 1,473,074 shares of the semiconductor company’s stock worth $21,536,000 after purchasing an additional 480,125 shares during the last quarter. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 90.41% of the company’s stock.

Photronics Company Profile

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Photronics, Inc engages in the provision of photomasks. It manufactures semiconductors and flat-panel displays and is used as masters to transfer circuit patterns onto semiconductor wafers and FPD substrates during the fabrication of integrated circuits, a variety of FPDs and other types of electrical and optical components.