West Branch Capital LLC Acquires 225,011 Shares of NVIDIA Co. (NASDAQ:NVDA)

West Branch Capital LLC grew its holdings in shares of NVIDIA Co. (NASDAQ:NVDA) by 878.0% in the second quarter, according to its most recent filing with the SEC. The firm owned 250,640 shares of the computer hardware maker’s stock after acquiring an additional 225,011 shares during the quarter. NVIDIA comprises approximately 11.5% of West Branch Capital LLC’s holdings, making the stock its 2nd largest position. West Branch Capital LLC’s holdings in NVIDIA were worth $30,964,000 as of its most recent SEC filing.

Several other institutional investors and hedge funds also recently modified their holdings of NVDA. Bank of New York Mellon Corp lifted its stake in shares of NVIDIA by 854.1% in the 2nd quarter. Bank of New York Mellon Corp now owns 182,622,629 shares of the computer hardware maker’s stock worth $22,561,200,000 after acquiring an additional 163,482,580 shares during the period. Baillie Gifford & Co. raised its holdings in NVIDIA by 696.6% during the second quarter. Baillie Gifford & Co. now owns 82,058,614 shares of the computer hardware maker’s stock worth $10,137,521,000 after purchasing an additional 71,757,065 shares in the last quarter. Sumitomo Mitsui Trust Holdings Inc. lifted its position in NVIDIA by 829.0% in the second quarter. Sumitomo Mitsui Trust Holdings Inc. now owns 64,055,653 shares of the computer hardware maker’s stock worth $7,913,435,000 after purchasing an additional 57,160,191 shares during the period. Swedbank AB boosted its stake in NVIDIA by 798.8% during the 2nd quarter. Swedbank AB now owns 39,020,364 shares of the computer hardware maker’s stock valued at $4,820,576,000 after purchasing an additional 34,678,944 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Norges Bank acquired a new position in shares of NVIDIA during the 4th quarter valued at $14,606,369,000. Institutional investors own 65.27% of the company’s stock.

Insider Buying and Selling

In other NVIDIA news, CEO Jen Hsun Huang sold 120,000 shares of the stock in a transaction on Wednesday, July 10th. The stock was sold at an average price of $134.10, for a total transaction of $16,092,000.00. Following the completion of the transaction, the chief executive officer now directly owns 79,254,995 shares in the company, valued at $10,628,094,829.50. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is accessible through this hyperlink. In other news, CEO Jen Hsun Huang sold 120,000 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction dated Wednesday, July 10th. The shares were sold at an average price of $134.10, for a total value of $16,092,000.00. Following the sale, the chief executive officer now owns 79,254,995 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $10,628,094,829.50. The transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which can be accessed through the SEC website. Also, CFO Colette Kress sold 100,000 shares of NVIDIA stock in a transaction dated Monday, June 24th. The shares were sold at an average price of $120.85, for a total transaction of $12,085,000.00. Following the transaction, the chief financial officer now directly owns 5,188,862 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $627,073,972.70. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders sold 3,692,303 shares of company stock worth $444,047,307 in the last 90 days. 4.23% of the stock is owned by company insiders.

Analyst Ratings Changes

NVDA has been the subject of several research reports. UBS Group raised their target price on NVIDIA from $120.00 to $150.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a research note on Monday, July 8th. Wedbush restated an “outperform” rating and set a $138.00 price objective on shares of NVIDIA in a research report on Thursday, August 29th. DZ Bank downgraded shares of NVIDIA from a “buy” rating to a “hold” rating and set a $102.50 target price on the stock. in a report on Friday, May 24th. Cantor Fitzgerald restated an “overweight” rating and set a $175.00 target price on shares of NVIDIA in a report on Thursday, August 29th. Finally, Truist Financial lifted their price target on shares of NVIDIA from $140.00 to $145.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a research report on Tuesday, August 27th. Five analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, thirty-seven have given a buy rating and two have issued a strong buy rating to the stock. Based on data from MarketBeat, NVIDIA has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus target price of $142.10.

NVIDIA Trading Down 1.6 %

Shares of NASDAQ NVDA opened at $116.00 on Friday. The business has a 50 day simple moving average of $115.99 and a 200 day simple moving average of $106.97. NVIDIA Co. has a 52 week low of $39.23 and a 52 week high of $140.76. The stock has a market cap of $2.85 trillion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 67.84, a PEG ratio of 1.06 and a beta of 1.67. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.15, a quick ratio of 3.79 and a current ratio of 4.27.

NVIDIA (NASDAQ:NVDA) last announced its quarterly earnings results on Wednesday, August 28th. The computer hardware maker reported $0.68 EPS for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $0.64 by $0.04. NVIDIA had a return on equity of 113.50% and a net margin of 55.04%. The company had revenue of $30.04 billion for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $28.74 billion. During the same quarter last year, the company posted $0.25 earnings per share. The company’s revenue for the quarter was up 122.4% compared to the same quarter last year. On average, research analysts predict that NVIDIA Co. will post 2.64 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

NVIDIA announced that its board has approved a share buyback program on Wednesday, August 28th that allows the company to buyback $50.00 billion in outstanding shares. This buyback authorization allows the computer hardware maker to repurchase up to 1.6% of its stock through open market purchases. Stock buyback programs are generally an indication that the company’s board of directors believes its shares are undervalued.

NVIDIA Cuts Dividend

The company also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Thursday, October 3rd. Investors of record on Thursday, September 12th will be given a dividend of $0.01 per share. This represents a $0.04 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 0.03%. The ex-dividend date is Thursday, September 12th. NVIDIA’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is presently 2.34%.

About NVIDIA

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.