Merit Financial Group LLC Boosts Stock Holdings in Amkor Technology, Inc. (NASDAQ:AMKR)

Merit Financial Group LLC raised its position in shares of Amkor Technology, Inc. (NASDAQ:AMKR) by 34.4% in the 4th quarter, according to the company in its most recent Form 13F filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The firm owned 13,722 shares of the semiconductor company’s stock after purchasing an additional 3,513 shares during the period. Merit Financial Group LLC’s holdings in Amkor Technology were worth $353,000 as of its most recent filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

Several other institutional investors and hedge funds also recently made changes to their positions in the company. Hennion & Walsh Asset Management Inc. lifted its holdings in Amkor Technology by 34.1% during the fourth quarter. Hennion & Walsh Asset Management Inc. now owns 8,862 shares of the semiconductor company’s stock valued at $228,000 after purchasing an additional 2,255 shares during the last quarter. Covea Finance grew its position in shares of Amkor Technology by 47.1% in the fourth quarter. Covea Finance now owns 62,500 shares of the semiconductor company’s stock valued at $1,606,000 after purchasing an additional 20,000 shares in the last quarter. Principal Financial Group Inc. raised its stake in shares of Amkor Technology by 212.6% during the 3rd quarter. Principal Financial Group Inc. now owns 1,361,084 shares of the semiconductor company’s stock valued at $41,647,000 after purchasing an additional 925,644 shares during the period. Retirement Systems of Alabama lifted its holdings in Amkor Technology by 7.9% during the 3rd quarter. Retirement Systems of Alabama now owns 137,679 shares of the semiconductor company’s stock worth $4,213,000 after purchasing an additional 10,069 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Neo Ivy Capital Management bought a new position in Amkor Technology in the 3rd quarter worth about $930,000. Institutional investors own 42.76% of the company’s stock.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

A number of analysts recently weighed in on AMKR shares. The Goldman Sachs Group decreased their target price on shares of Amkor Technology from $36.00 to $32.00 and set a “neutral” rating on the stock in a report on Tuesday, October 29th. Melius lowered Amkor Technology from a “buy” rating to a “hold” rating and cut their price objective for the stock from $34.00 to $30.00 in a report on Monday, January 6th. Needham & Company LLC lowered their target price on shares of Amkor Technology from $45.00 to $34.00 and set a “buy” rating on the stock in a research note on Tuesday, October 29th. JPMorgan Chase & Co. dropped their price objective on shares of Amkor Technology from $48.00 to $42.00 and set an “overweight” rating for the company in a report on Tuesday, October 29th. Finally, StockNews.com cut Amkor Technology from a “buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a research note on Tuesday, October 29th. Six analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and five have assigned a buy rating to the company. According to data from MarketBeat, Amkor Technology presently has an average rating of “Hold” and an average price target of $35.50.

Amkor Technology Stock Performance

Amkor Technology stock opened at $25.69 on Friday. The company has a market capitalization of $6.34 billion, a PE ratio of 17.36 and a beta of 1.83. The firm has a fifty day simple moving average of $26.12 and a two-hundred day simple moving average of $29.80. The company has a quick ratio of 1.84, a current ratio of 2.06 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.21. Amkor Technology, Inc. has a twelve month low of $24.10 and a twelve month high of $44.86.

Amkor Technology (NASDAQ:AMKR) last released its quarterly earnings data on Monday, October 28th. The semiconductor company reported $0.49 earnings per share for the quarter, missing analysts’ consensus estimates of $0.50 by ($0.01). Amkor Technology had a net margin of 5.68% and a return on equity of 8.98%. The company had revenue of $1.86 billion for the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $1.84 billion. During the same period last year, the company posted $0.54 EPS. The business’s revenue for the quarter was up 2.2% compared to the same quarter last year. Research analysts expect that Amkor Technology, Inc. will post 1.38 EPS for the current year.

Amkor Technology Increases Dividend

The firm also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Monday, December 23rd. Investors of record on Wednesday, December 4th were paid a $0.0827 dividend. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Wednesday, December 4th. This is a boost from Amkor Technology’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.08. This represents a $0.33 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 1.29%. Amkor Technology’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is presently 22.30%.

Amkor Technology Profile

Amkor Technology, Inc provides outsourced semiconductor packaging and test services in the United States, Japan, Europe, the Middle East, Africa, and the Asia Pacific. It offers turnkey packaging and test services, including semiconductor wafer bump, wafer probe, wafer back-grind, package design, packaging, system-level and final test, and drop shipment services; flip chip scale package products for smartphones, tablets, and other mobile consumer electronic devices; flip chip stacked chip scale packages that are used to stack memory digital baseband, and as applications processors in mobile devices; flip-chip ball grid array packages for various networking, storage, computing, automotive, and consumer applications; and memory products for system memory or platform data storage.