Easterly Investment Partners LLC Sells 20,861 Shares of Silicon Motion Technology Co. (NASDAQ:SIMO)

Easterly Investment Partners LLC lessened its stake in Silicon Motion Technology Co. (NASDAQ:SIMO) by 9.2% in the fourth quarter, according to the company in its most recent 13F filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). The institutional investor owned 204,931 shares of the semiconductor producer’s stock after selling 20,861 shares during the period. Easterly Investment Partners LLC owned approximately 0.61% of Silicon Motion Technology worth $11,077,000 at the end of the most recent reporting period.

Other institutional investors and hedge funds have also recently made changes to their positions in the company. Advisors Asset Management Inc. grew its position in Silicon Motion Technology by 129.4% during the third quarter. Advisors Asset Management Inc. now owns 445 shares of the semiconductor producer’s stock valued at $27,000 after acquiring an additional 251 shares during the last quarter. GAMMA Investing LLC grew its holdings in shares of Silicon Motion Technology by 123.2% during the 4th quarter. GAMMA Investing LLC now owns 877 shares of the semiconductor producer’s stock valued at $47,000 after purchasing an additional 484 shares during the last quarter. Blue Trust Inc. raised its position in Silicon Motion Technology by 64.7% in the 4th quarter. Blue Trust Inc. now owns 2,248 shares of the semiconductor producer’s stock worth $122,000 after purchasing an additional 883 shares during the period. Virtu Financial LLC bought a new stake in Silicon Motion Technology in the fourth quarter worth $208,000. Finally, Choreo LLC purchased a new stake in Silicon Motion Technology during the fourth quarter valued at about $209,000. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 78.02% of the company’s stock.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

SIMO has been the subject of a number of recent research reports. Wedbush reissued an “outperform” rating and issued a $90.00 target price on shares of Silicon Motion Technology in a research note on Monday, December 23rd. StockNews.com cut shares of Silicon Motion Technology from a “buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a report on Thursday, February 13th. Finally, Needham & Company LLC reiterated a “buy” rating and set a $70.00 price target on shares of Silicon Motion Technology in a report on Friday, February 7th. One analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, one has given a hold rating and seven have assigned a buy rating to the company’s stock. According to data from MarketBeat.com, Silicon Motion Technology has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average price target of $80.63.

Silicon Motion Technology Price Performance

SIMO stock opened at $53.08 on Thursday. Silicon Motion Technology Co. has a 1 year low of $48.81 and a 1 year high of $85.87. The firm has a 50-day moving average of $54.35 and a 200 day moving average of $55.41. The company has a market cap of $1.79 billion, a P/E ratio of 19.73, a PEG ratio of 1.36 and a beta of 0.71.

Silicon Motion Technology (NASDAQ:SIMO) last released its earnings results on Wednesday, February 5th. The semiconductor producer reported $0.68 EPS for the quarter, missing analysts’ consensus estimates of $0.78 by ($0.10). Silicon Motion Technology had a net margin of 11.29% and a return on equity of 11.63%. On average, equities research analysts expect that Silicon Motion Technology Co. will post 3.08 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Silicon Motion Technology announced that its Board of Directors has authorized a share buyback program on Wednesday, February 5th that allows the company to repurchase $50.00 million in outstanding shares. This repurchase authorization allows the semiconductor producer to buy up to 2.6% of its stock through open market purchases. Stock repurchase programs are typically an indication that the company’s board believes its shares are undervalued.

Silicon Motion Technology Dividend Announcement

The firm also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Thursday, February 27th. Investors of record on Thursday, February 13th were paid a $0.50 dividend. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Thursday, February 13th. This represents a $2.00 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 3.77%. Silicon Motion Technology’s payout ratio is 74.35%.

About Silicon Motion Technology

Silicon Motion Technology Corporation, together with its subsidiaries, designs, develops, and markets NAND flash controllers for solid-state storage devices. The company offers controllers for computing-grade solid state drives (SSDs), which are used in PCs and other client devices; enterprise-grade SSDs used in data centers; eMMC and UFS mobile embedded storage for use in smartphones and IoT devices; flash memory cards and flash drives for use in expandable storage; and specialized SSDs that are used in industrial, commercial, and automotive applications.