Kentucky Retirement Systems Reduces Holdings in NVIDIA Co. (NASDAQ:NVDA)

Kentucky Retirement Systems lessened its position in NVIDIA Co. (NASDAQ:NVDA) by 7.5% in the third quarter, according to the company in its most recent 13F filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). The firm owned 1,713,770 shares of the computer hardware maker’s stock after selling 139,871 shares during the period. NVIDIA comprises about 6.1% of Kentucky Retirement Systems’ portfolio, making the stock its 3rd largest holding. Kentucky Retirement Systems’ holdings in NVIDIA were worth $208,120,000 at the end of the most recent reporting period.

Other institutional investors also recently modified their holdings of the company. Meridian Investment Counsel Inc. lifted its stake in NVIDIA by 0.9% in the 3rd quarter. Meridian Investment Counsel Inc. now owns 17,615 shares of the computer hardware maker’s stock valued at $2,139,000 after purchasing an additional 160 shares during the last quarter. Seelaus Asset Management LLC raised its stake in NVIDIA by 4.1% in the third quarter. Seelaus Asset Management LLC now owns 9,985 shares of the computer hardware maker’s stock valued at $1,213,000 after buying an additional 395 shares during the period. Spectrum Investment Advisors Inc. lifted its position in shares of NVIDIA by 9.8% in the third quarter. Spectrum Investment Advisors Inc. now owns 3,515 shares of the computer hardware maker’s stock valued at $427,000 after buying an additional 315 shares during the last quarter. Valley Wealth Managers Inc. boosted its stake in shares of NVIDIA by 34.3% during the 3rd quarter. Valley Wealth Managers Inc. now owns 25,477 shares of the computer hardware maker’s stock worth $3,094,000 after acquiring an additional 6,510 shares during the period. Finally, Empirical Finance LLC increased its holdings in shares of NVIDIA by 1.8% during the 3rd quarter. Empirical Finance LLC now owns 876,401 shares of the computer hardware maker’s stock worth $106,430,000 after acquiring an additional 15,682 shares during the last quarter. 65.27% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

A number of equities analysts have commented on NVDA shares. Stifel Nicolaus lifted their price objective on shares of NVIDIA from $165.00 to $180.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a research report on Tuesday, November 19th. Mizuho lifted their target price on shares of NVIDIA from $165.00 to $175.00 and gave the stock an “outperform” rating in a report on Thursday, November 21st. Benchmark increased their price target on shares of NVIDIA from $170.00 to $190.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a report on Thursday, November 21st. UBS Group boosted their price objective on NVIDIA from $150.00 to $185.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a report on Monday, November 11th. Finally, TD Cowen increased their target price on NVIDIA from $165.00 to $175.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a research note on Thursday, November 21st. Four analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, thirty-nine have assigned a buy rating and one has assigned a strong buy rating to the company. According to data from MarketBeat.com, the stock presently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus price target of $164.15.

NVIDIA Stock Performance

NASDAQ:NVDA opened at $134.29 on Thursday. The stock’s 50-day moving average is $139.55 and its 200-day moving average is $128.09. The stock has a market cap of $3.29 trillion, a P/E ratio of 52.85, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 2.43 and a beta of 1.63. NVIDIA Co. has a 1-year low of $47.32 and a 1-year high of $152.89. 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 announced its 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. NVIDIA had a return on equity of 114.83% and a net margin of 55.69%. The business had revenue of $35.08 billion for the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $33.15 billion. During the same period in the prior year, the business posted $0.38 earnings per share. The firm’s revenue was up 93.6% on a year-over-year basis. Equities research analysts anticipate that NVIDIA Co. will post 2.78 earnings per share for the current year.

NVIDIA Dividend Announcement

The firm also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Friday, December 27th. Investors of record on Thursday, December 5th were given a dividend of $0.01 per share. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Thursday, December 5th. This represents a $0.04 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 0.03%. NVIDIA’s payout ratio is 1.57%.

Insiders Place Their Bets

In other NVIDIA news, insider Donald F. Robertson, Jr. sold 4,500 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction on Friday, December 13th. The shares were sold at an average price of $135.28, for a total transaction of $608,760.00. Following the transaction, the insider now owns 480,899 shares in the company, valued at approximately $65,056,016.72. This represents a 0.93 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which is accessible through this hyperlink. Also, Director Mark A. Stevens sold 155,000 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction dated Wednesday, October 9th. The shares were sold at an average price of $132.27, for a total transaction of $20,501,850.00. Following the completion of the transaction, the director now directly owns 8,100,117 shares in the company, valued at approximately $1,071,402,475.59. The trade was a 1.88 % decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Over the last three months, insiders sold 1,226,886 shares of company stock worth $161,499,400. 4.23% of the stock is owned by corporate insiders.

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.