Willis Investment Counsel Boosts Stake in NVIDIA Co. (NASDAQ:NVDA)

Willis Investment Counsel lifted its stake in NVIDIA Co. (NASDAQ:NVDA) by 1.5% in the 4th quarter, according to its most recent filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). The institutional investor owned 150,413 shares of the computer hardware maker’s stock after purchasing an additional 2,221 shares during the period. Willis Investment Counsel’s holdings in NVIDIA were worth $20,199,000 at the end of the most recent reporting period.

Other hedge funds and other institutional investors have also recently modified their holdings of the company. Christopher J. Hasenberg Inc purchased a new stake in NVIDIA in the 3rd quarter worth $27,000. University of Texas Texas AM Investment Management Co. purchased a new stake in NVIDIA in the 2nd quarter worth $31,000. Legend Financial Advisors Inc. purchased a new stake in NVIDIA in the 4th quarter worth $34,000. West Financial Advisors LLC purchased a new stake in NVIDIA in the 3rd quarter worth $36,000. Finally, Luken Investment Analytics LLC purchased a new stake in NVIDIA in the 4th quarter worth $40,000. 65.27% of the stock is currently owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

A number of equities research analysts have issued reports on the company. Summit Insights lowered NVIDIA from a “buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a research note on Thursday. Deutsche Bank Aktiengesellschaft raised their price objective on NVIDIA from $115.00 to $140.00 and gave the company a “hold” rating in a research report on Thursday, November 21st. Truist Financial raised their price objective on NVIDIA from $204.00 to $205.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a research report on Thursday. Bank of America raised their price objective on NVIDIA from $190.00 to $200.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a research report on Thursday. Finally, Oppenheimer restated an “outperform” rating and set a $175.00 price objective on shares of NVIDIA in a research report on Thursday, November 21st. Five research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, thirty-eight have assigned a buy rating and one has given a strong buy rating to the stock. Based on data from MarketBeat, the company currently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $169.62.

Insider Activity

In related news, insider Donald F. Robertson, Jr. sold 4,500 shares of NVIDIA stock in a transaction dated Friday, December 13th. The stock was sold at an average price of $135.28, for a total transaction of $608,760.00. Following the completion of the sale, the insider now owns 480,899 shares in the company, valued at approximately $65,056,016.72. This trade represents a 0.93 % decrease in their position. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which can be accessed through this hyperlink. Also, Director Tench Coxe sold 1,000,000 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction dated Monday, December 16th. The stock was sold at an average price of $131.26, for a total value of $131,260,000.00. Following the completion of the sale, the director now directly owns 28,671,360 shares in the company, valued at approximately $3,763,402,713.60. The trade was a 3.37 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders sold a total of 1,107,632 shares of company stock worth $146,405,286 over the last 90 days. 4.23% of the stock is currently owned by corporate insiders.

NVIDIA Price Performance

NVIDIA stock opened at $124.81 on Friday. NVIDIA Co. has a one year low of $75.61 and a one year high of $153.13. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.13, a quick ratio of 3.64 and a current ratio of 4.10. The business has a fifty day moving average of $134.19 and a two-hundred day moving average of $132.03. The company has a market cap of $3.05 trillion, a P/E ratio of 49.12, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 1.76 and a beta of 1.62.

NVIDIA (NASDAQ:NVDA) last released its earnings results on Wednesday, February 26th. The computer hardware maker reported $0.89 EPS for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $0.84 by $0.05. NVIDIA had a return on equity of 114.83% and a net margin of 55.69%. The company had revenue of $39.33 billion during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $38.16 billion. As a group, analysts predict that NVIDIA Co. will post 2.77 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

NVIDIA Dividend Announcement

The company also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Wednesday, April 2nd. Stockholders of record on Wednesday, March 12th will be given a $0.01 dividend. This represents a $0.04 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 0.03%. The ex-dividend date is Wednesday, March 12th. NVIDIA’s dividend payout ratio is currently 1.36%.

NVIDIA Company Profile

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.