Amkor Technology, Inc. (NASDAQ:AMKR) Sees Significant Increase in Short Interest

Amkor Technology, Inc. (NASDAQ:AMKR - Get Free Report) was the target of a large growth in short interest in February. As of February 28th, there was short interest totalling 5,460,000 shares, a growth of 20.0% from the February 13th total of 4,550,000 shares. Currently, 5.5% of the company's stock are short sold. Based on an average trading volume of 1,650,000 shares, the days-to-cover ratio is currently 3.3 days.

Amkor Technology Price Performance

Shares of Amkor Technology stock remained flat at $19.42 during trading on Friday. The stock had a trading volume of 14,880,287 shares, compared to its average volume of 1,516,137. The firm has a market cap of $4.79 billion, a P/E ratio of 13.58 and a beta of 1.88. The firm's 50-day moving average price is $22.65 and its two-hundred day moving average price is $26.11. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.22, a current ratio of 2.11 and a quick ratio of 1.90. Amkor Technology has a 52-week low of $18.87 and a 52-week high of $44.86.

Amkor Technology (NASDAQ:AMKR - Get Free Report) last issued its quarterly earnings data on Monday, February 10th. The semiconductor company reported $0.43 earnings per share for the quarter, beating analysts' consensus estimates of $0.37 by $0.06. Amkor Technology had a return on equity of 8.59% and a net margin of 5.60%. On average, research analysts predict that Amkor Technology will post 1.47 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

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Amkor Technology Cuts Dividend

The firm also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Wednesday, April 2nd. Investors of record on Thursday, March 13th will be issued a $0.0827 dividend. This represents a $0.33 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 1.70%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Thursday, March 13th. Amkor Technology's payout ratio is 23.08%.

Insider Activity at Amkor Technology

In related news, EVP Kevin Engel sold 5,489 shares of the company's stock in a transaction that occurred on Tuesday, February 25th. The stock was sold at an average price of $21.69, for a total value of $119,056.41. Following the transaction, the executive vice president now directly owns 1,388 shares of the company's stock, valued at approximately $30,105.72. This represents a 79.82 % decrease in their position. The transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which can be accessed through this hyperlink. Also, major shareholder Agnes C. Kim sold 869,565 shares of the company's stock in a transaction that occurred on Monday, February 24th. The shares were sold at an average price of $21.85, for a total value of $18,999,995.25. Following the completion of the transaction, the insider now directly owns 10,020,870 shares in the company, valued at $218,956,009.50. This trade represents a 7.98 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. 31.40% of the stock is currently owned by insiders.

Institutional Inflows and Outflows

A number of institutional investors have recently made changes to their positions in AMKR. Pacer Advisors Inc. lifted its holdings in shares of Amkor Technology by 24,383.3% in the 3rd quarter. Pacer Advisors Inc. now owns 3,787,565 shares of the semiconductor company's stock valued at $115,899,000 after acquiring an additional 3,772,095 shares during the last quarter. Norges Bank bought a new position in shares of Amkor Technology in the 4th quarter valued at about $32,479,000. Vanguard Group Inc. lifted its holdings in shares of Amkor Technology by 7.5% in the 4th quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 15,664,226 shares of the semiconductor company's stock valued at $402,414,000 after acquiring an additional 1,092,002 shares during the last quarter. Wellington Management Group LLP lifted its holdings in shares of Amkor Technology by 522.0% in the 3rd quarter. Wellington Management Group LLP now owns 1,134,106 shares of the semiconductor company's stock valued at $34,704,000 after acquiring an additional 951,764 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Principal Financial Group Inc. lifted its holdings in shares of Amkor Technology by 212.6% in the 3rd quarter. Principal Financial Group Inc. now owns 1,361,084 shares of the semiconductor company's stock valued at $41,647,000 after acquiring an additional 925,644 shares during the last quarter. Institutional investors own 42.76% of the company's stock.

Analyst Ratings Changes

Several equities analysts have recently weighed in on the company. Morgan Stanley lowered their price target on Amkor Technology from $26.00 to $24.00 and set an "equal weight" rating on the stock in a report on Tuesday, February 11th. Needham & Company LLC reissued a "buy" rating and set a $34.00 price target on shares of Amkor Technology in a report on Tuesday, February 11th. Melius Research lowered Amkor Technology from a "strong-buy" rating to a "hold" rating in a research note on Monday, January 6th. JPMorgan Chase & Co. cut their price target on Amkor Technology from $42.00 to $30.00 and set an "overweight" rating for the company in a research note on Tuesday, February 11th. Finally, B. Riley cut their price target on Amkor Technology from $38.00 to $32.00 and set a "buy" rating for the company in a research note on Tuesday, February 11th. Five analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and five have assigned a buy rating to the company. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, the stock currently has an average rating of "Moderate Buy" and a consensus target price of $31.50.

Amkor Technology Company Profile

Amkor Technology, Inc provides outsourced semiconductor packaging and test services in the United States, Japan, Europe, the Middle East, Africa, and the Asia Pacific. It offers turnkey packaging and test services, including semiconductor wafer bump, wafer probe, wafer back-grind, package design, packaging, system-level and final test, and drop shipment services; flip chip scale package products for smartphones, tablets, and other mobile consumer electronic devices; flip chip stacked chip scale packages that are used to stack memory digital baseband, and as applications processors in mobile devices; flip-chip ball grid array packages for various networking, storage, computing, automotive, and consumer applications; and memory products for system memory or platform data storage.