Joseph John Corso Sells 3,524 Shares of nLight (NASDAQ:LASR) Stock

nLight (NASDAQ:LASR) CFO Joseph Corso sold 3,524 shares of nLight stock in a transaction that occurred on Friday, September 4th. The shares were sold at an average price of $41.49, for a total transaction of $146,210.76. Following the completion of the transaction, the chief financial officer directly owned 162,200 shares in the company, valued at $6,729,678. This trade represents a 2.13% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which can be accessed through this link. The transaction was executed under a pre-arranged Rule 10b5-1 trading plan. The sale was made to cover tax withholding obligations related to the vesting of equity awards.

Joseph John Corso also recently made the following trade(s):

• On Thursday, September 3rd, Joseph Corso sold 4,191 shares of nLight stock. The stock was sold at an average price of $40.69, for a total value of $170,531.79.

nLight Stock Performance

Shares of LASR stock opened at $40.99 on Thursday. nLight has a fifty-two week low of $27.22 and a fifty-two week high of $86.95. The stock’s fifty day moving average price is $57.70 and its two-hundred day moving average price is $64.24. The company has a market cap of $2.36 billion, a PE ratio of -163.96 and a beta of 2.30.

nLight (NASDAQ:LASR) last posted its quarterly earnings results on Thursday, August 6th. The company reported $0.15 EPS for the quarter, topping analysts’ consensus estimates of $0.14 by $0.01. nLight had a negative return on equity of 2.83% and a negative net margin of 4.02%.The company had revenue of $82.59 million during the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $78.58 million. During the same quarter in the previous year, the firm earned $0.06 EPS. nLight’s revenue was up 33.8% on a year-over-year basis. On average, equities analysts predict that nLight will post -0.19 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

LASR has been the topic of a number of research analyst reports. Stifel Nicolaus raised their price target on shares of nLight from $75.00 to $85.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a research note on Thursday, May 21st. UBS Group set a $90.00 price objective on shares of nLight in a research note on Friday, July 10th. Wall Street Zen lowered shares of nLight from a “buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a research report on Saturday, July 18th. Needham & Company LLC boosted their target price on shares of nLight from $80.00 to $90.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a research note on Thursday, July 9th. Finally, Weiss Ratings reiterated a “sell (d-)” rating on shares of nLight in a report on Friday, July 17th. One analyst has rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, eight have given a Buy rating, one has assigned a Hold rating and one has given a Sell rating to the company. According to data from MarketBeat.com, nLight has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average price target of $87.94.

Institutional Trading of nLight

Several hedge funds and other institutional investors have recently made changes to their positions in the company. BlackRock Inc. bought a new position in nLight in the 2nd quarter valued at approximately $339,687,000. California State Teachers Retirement System grew its holdings in nLight by 7,636.1% during the 2nd quarter. California State Teachers Retirement System now owns 4,262,345 shares of the company’s stock worth $296,744,000 after acquiring an additional 4,207,248 shares during the last quarter. Artisan Partners Limited Partnership bought a new stake in nLight during the 4th quarter worth approximately $41,315,000. AWM Investment Company Inc. acquired a new position in nLight in the 2nd quarter valued at approximately $65,374,000. Finally, Invesco Ltd. increased its position in nLight by 377.2% in the 3rd quarter. Invesco Ltd. now owns 1,057,281 shares of the company’s stock valued at $31,327,000 after acquiring an additional 835,720 shares during the period. 83.88% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors.

nLight Company Profile

nLIGHT, Inc designs, develops, manufactures, and sells semiconductor and fiber lasers for industrial, microfabrication, and aerospace and defense applications. The company operates in two segments, Laser Products and Advanced Development. It offers semiconductor lasers with various ranges of power levels, wavelengths, and output fiber sizes; and programmable and serviceable fiber lasers for use in industrial and aerospace and defense applications. The company also provides laser sensors, including light detection and ranging technologies for intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance applications; and fiber amplifiers, beam combination, and control systems for use in high-energy laser systems in directed energy applications.