KLA Corp. (KLAC): Are Investors Missing The Big Picture?

KLA Corp. (NASDAQ:KLAC) does about 930.91K shares in volume on a normal day but saw 685353 shares change hands in the recent trading day. The company now has a market cap of 109.10B USD. Its current market price is $811.57, marking a decrease of -1.08% compared to the previous close of $820.45. The 52 week high reached by this stock is $896.32 whilst the lowest price level in 52 weeks is $440.15. The script in recent trading has seen the stock touch a high of $900 and a low of $345.

KLA Corp. (KLAC) has a 20-day trading average at $768.42 and the current price is -9.46% off the 52-week high compared with 84.38% distance from its 52-week low. The 50-day simple moving average of the closing price is $805.21 and its 200-day simple moving average is $682.30. If we look at the stock’s price movements over the week, volatility stands at 3.29%, which increases to 5.07% over 1 month. It is also key to look at other market indicators of price movement for the stock, where we see that the relative strength index (RSI) is at 54.44 to suggest the stock is neutral.

12 analysts observing the KLA Corp. (KLAC) stock have set the 12-month price targets for the company’s shares at between $345 and $900. The consensus objective for the share price is $883.37, suggesting that the stock has a potential upside of 8.13% over the period. The median price target is -63.95% away from the current levels at $495.

FactSet Research has provided data showing that 12 brokerages have issued ratings for the stock. 0 analysts have rated it as a sell, while 0 advise that it is a overweight. 9 analysts have rated it as a buy and 3 have advised that investors hold their positions. The consensus recommendation rating is Buy and Wall Street’s advice is for investors to Strong Buy the stock.

The company shares received a number of brokerage firm price updates over the past month, with the latest being on July 25, 2024 when TD Cowen reiterated the stock to “Hold” and issued a price target of between $700 and $760. Barclays upgraded its price target at $630-$765.

The current price level is 5.64%, 0.90%, and 19.24% away from its SMA20, SMA50, and SMA200 respectively, with the KLAC price moving above the 50-day SMA on current market day. KLA Corp. (KLAC) stock is up 2.23% over the week and 0.25% over the past month. Its price is 39.61% year-to-date and 69.80% over the past year.

Its 12-month price target is $495. To reach the target analysts have set, the stock logically needs to grow 8.13 percent from here. Of course, the average price target is just what the average analysts believe a stock will be worth in the next 52 weeks, and is only one metric. There are analysts with lower targets than the average, including one bearish Wall Street research firm advocating investors to wait for the price to pull back to $345, given the recent momentum. And then, on the bullish side of things, one analyst is expecting the stock to peak at $900.

Outstanding shares total 134.43M with insiders holding 0.12% of the shares and institutional holders owning 92.40% of the company’s common stock. The company has a return on investment of 29.38% and return on equity of 87.85%. The price to earnings ratio (P/E ratio) amounts to 40.00 while the forward price to earnings ratio is 23.91. The beta has a value of 1.28. Price to book ratio is 32.39 and price to sales ratio is 11.14.