Lam Research Corporation (NASDAQ:LRCX) designs, manufactures, markets, and services semiconductor processing equipment used in the fabrication of integrated circuits.
Lam Research in the News
On July 7th, Lam Research announced the addition of atomic layer etch to its portfolio of atomic layer deposition products. At their analyst day at Semicon West, analysts got excited about their prospects for the future due to their current positioning to capitalize in the industry .
Bank of America analyst Krish Sankar reiterated a Buy rating on Lam Research on July 9th and raised the price target from $67.00 to $80.00. Sankar explained that Lam’s analyst day at Semicon West, “The management tightened the wafer fab equipment (WFE) spending range for CY14 to $32B +/-$1B. The company should benefit as the upcoming 3D technology inflections of FinFET and vNAND are deposition and etch intensive. Furthermore, the management laid out financial targets with goal of getting to $7.00 in earnings power (mid-point) at a $36B WFE spending environment. We reiterate our Buy rating.”
Sankar has a 50% success rate of overall recommendations, earning +14.3%.
Recommending Lam Research, Sankar has 100% success rate, earning +49.3% average return.
Piper Jaffray analyst Ruben Roy issued an Overweight rating and raised his price target from $62.00 to $80.00, explaining Lam’s analyst day “highlighted growing semi industry trends which will drive ongoing WFE growth and an estimated $2b addressable market expansion for Lam Research Corporation (NASDAQ:LRCX). We believe that LRCX is positioning itself well to capitalize in industry inflections in mobility and IoT, allowing it to remain in a leading industry position which increasingly requires greater technological precision at advanced semiconductor nodes. LRCX likely sees improving operating leverage in its model and we tick up our FY15 estimates and our P/E multiple, raising our PT to $80 ($62 previously) leaving us OW rated.”
Roy has a 74% success rate of all recommendations, earning an average return of +15.2%.
Timony Arcuri, and analyst for Cowen & Co. covering chip equipment, reiterated an Outperform rating on the shares, with a $80 price target, partially due to the fact that “LRCX raised its financial model to yield what is essentially another ~$1.00 EPS at both current ~$32B WFE spend levels and as WFE grows to ~$35-36B (from ~$5.75 to ~$7.00 (mid-pt.)) and laid a case to gain ~500bps in SAM share through 2017. The new model is based on similar share goals but off a higher base given the 2013 share gains in both etch and deposition.”
Arcuri has an overall success rate of 74%, yielding an average return of +12.9%.
Regarding Lam Research recommendations, he has a 63% success rate, with an average return of +7.9%.
Conclusion
These top analyst might not agree with every recommendation they make, but when it comes to Lam Research Corporation (NASDAQ:LRCX), there is a definite buy consensus with a $80 price target.
