Investors Buy Large Volume of Call Options on Micron Technology (NASDAQ:MU)

Micron Technology, Inc. (NASDAQ:MU) saw unusually large options trading on Monday. Stock investors acquired 219,650 call options on the stock. This is an increase of 26% compared to the average volume of 173,735 call options.

Insiders Place Their Bets

In other Micron Technology news, EVP April S. Arnzen sold 4,890 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Wednesday, March 27th. The stock was sold at an average price of $119.30, for a total transaction of $583,377.00. Following the sale, the executive vice president now directly owns 148,817 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $17,753,868.10. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available at this hyperlink. In other news, CEO Sanjay Mehrotra sold 45,000 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Monday, March 25th. The stock was sold at an average price of $120.00, for a total transaction of $5,400,000.00. Following the transaction, the chief executive officer now owns 743,557 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $89,226,840. The transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which is available at this link. Also, EVP April S. Arnzen sold 4,890 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Wednesday, March 27th. The shares were sold at an average price of $119.30, for a total value of $583,377.00. Following the transaction, the executive vice president now directly owns 148,817 shares in the company, valued at approximately $17,753,868.10. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders have sold 365,446 shares of company stock valued at $43,826,633 over the last ninety days. 0.32% of the stock is owned by insiders.

Institutional Trading of Micron Technology

Large investors have recently modified their holdings of the stock. DecisionPoint Financial LLC purchased a new position in Micron Technology in the first quarter valued at $25,000. Valued Wealth Advisors LLC increased its holdings in Micron Technology by 230.7% in the first quarter. Valued Wealth Advisors LLC now owns 248 shares of the semiconductor manufacturer’s stock valued at $29,000 after buying an additional 173 shares during the last quarter. Tidemark LLC purchased a new position in Micron Technology in the fourth quarter valued at $25,000. Pingora Partners LLC purchased a new position in Micron Technology in the fourth quarter valued at $26,000. Finally, Riverview Trust Co purchased a new position in Micron Technology in the first quarter valued at $39,000. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 80.84% of the company’s stock.

Micron Technology Trading Up 4.6 %

Shares of Micron Technology stock opened at $147.83 on Tuesday. The stock has a market cap of $163.70 billion, a P/E ratio of -42.85 and a beta of 1.21. The stock’s 50 day simple moving average is $123.99 and its 200-day simple moving average is $102.27. Micron Technology has a 1-year low of $60.50 and a 1-year high of $148.75. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.30, a current ratio of 3.74 and a quick ratio of 2.40.

Micron Technology (NASDAQ:MU) last released its quarterly earnings data on Wednesday, March 20th. The semiconductor manufacturer reported $0.42 EPS for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of ($0.27) by $0.69. The firm had revenue of $5.82 billion for the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $5.35 billion. Micron Technology had a negative return on equity of 8.98% and a negative net margin of 20.57%. The firm’s quarterly revenue was up 57.7% on a year-over-year basis. During the same period in the prior year, the firm posted ($2.03) earnings per share. Analysts predict that Micron Technology will post 0.29 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Micron Technology Announces Dividend

The business also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Tuesday, April 16th. Stockholders of record on Monday, April 1st were given a dividend of $0.115 per share. This represents a $0.46 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 0.31%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Thursday, March 28th. Micron Technology’s dividend payout ratio is currently -13.33%.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

Several research firms have commented on MU. Barclays raised their price objective on Micron Technology from $120.00 to $145.00 and gave the stock an “overweight” rating in a report on Monday, May 13th. Robert W. Baird upgraded Micron Technology from a “neutral” rating to an “outperform” rating and raised their price objective for the stock from $115.00 to $150.00 in a report on Monday, May 6th. StockNews.com raised Micron Technology from a “sell” rating to a “hold” rating in a research report on Friday, March 22nd. The Goldman Sachs Group increased their target price on Micron Technology from $122.00 to $138.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a research report on Tuesday, June 4th. Finally, UBS Group increased their target price on Micron Technology from $125.00 to $155.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a research report on Monday, June 10th. Two equities research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and twenty-five have assigned a buy rating to the stock. According to data from MarketBeat.com, the company presently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus target price of $135.32.

About Micron Technology

Micron Technology, Inc designs, develops, manufactures, and sells memory and storage products worldwide. The company operates through four segments: Compute and Networking Business Unit, Mobile Business Unit, Embedded Business Unit, and Storage Business Unit. It provides memory and storage technologies comprising dynamic random access memory semiconductor devices with low latency that provide high-speed data retrieval; non-volatile and re-writeable semiconductor storage devices; and non-volatile re-writable semiconductor memory devices that provide fast read speeds under the Micron and Crucial brands, as well as through private labels.