Renaissance Technologies LLC Has $173.90 Million Stock Position in Nova Ltd. (NASDAQ:NVMI)

Renaissance Technologies LLC reduced its position in Nova Ltd. (NASDAQ:NVMI) by 4.1% during the 2nd quarter, according to the company in its most recent filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). The fund owned 741,486 shares of the semiconductor company’s stock after selling 31,900 shares during the period. Renaissance Technologies LLC’s holdings in Nova were worth $173,901,000 at the end of the most recent quarter.

A number of other hedge funds and other institutional investors also recently made changes to their positions in the company. FSC Wealth Advisors LLC bought a new position in shares of Nova during the 2nd quarter valued at $79,000. Signaturefd LLC lifted its position in shares of Nova by 15.9% in the second quarter. Signaturefd LLC now owns 767 shares of the semiconductor company’s stock worth $180,000 after buying an additional 105 shares during the last quarter. OLD National Bancorp IN acquired a new position in shares of Nova during the 2nd quarter valued at about $205,000. Wealth Enhancement Advisory Services LLC acquired a new position in shares of Nova during the 2nd quarter valued at about $232,000. Finally, nVerses Capital LLC acquired a new stake in Nova in the 2nd quarter worth approximately $235,000. 82.99% of the stock is owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

Several research analysts recently commented on NVMI shares. Citigroup downgraded shares of Nova from a “buy” rating to a “neutral” rating and dropped their target price for the stock from $273.00 to $224.00 in a report on Monday. Benchmark increased their target price on Nova from $215.00 to $240.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a research note on Friday, August 9th. Three investment analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and four have given a buy rating to the stock. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, Nova has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $226.80.

Nova Stock Performance

Shares of NVMI opened at $206.71 on Monday. The company has a 50-day simple moving average of $214.26 and a 200-day simple moving average of $202.33. Nova Ltd. has a 52 week low of $90.59 and a 52 week high of $247.21. The firm has a market capitalization of $6.00 billion, a P/E ratio of 47.63, a P/E/G ratio of 2.49 and a beta of 1.46.

Nova (NASDAQ:NVMI) last announced its quarterly earnings data on Thursday, August 8th. The semiconductor company reported $1.61 earnings per share for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $1.18 by $0.43. The company had revenue of $156.86 million for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $148.12 million. Nova had a return on equity of 20.76% and a net margin of 27.38%. Nova’s revenue for the quarter was up 27.8% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same quarter last year, the firm earned $0.97 EPS. As a group, equities analysts forecast that Nova Ltd. will post 5.63 earnings per share for the current year.

About Nova

Nova Ltd. designs, develops, produces, and sells process control systems used in the manufacture of semiconductors in Israel, Taiwan, the United States, China, Korea, and internationally. Its product portfolio includes a set of metrology platforms for dimensional, films, and materials and chemical metrology measurements for process control for various semiconductor manufacturing process steps, including lithography, etch, chemical mechanical planarization, deposition, electrochemical plating, and advanced packaging.