Tower Semiconductor (NASDAQ:TSEM) Stock Falls 8.6% – Time to Sell?

Tower Semiconductor Ltd. (NASDAQ:TSEM) was down 8.6% during trading on Thursday. The company traded as low as $228.60 and last traded at $227.0170. Approximately 781,578 shares changed hands during trading, a decline of 65% from the average daily volume of 2,240,193 shares. The stock had previously closed at $248.25.

Wall Street Analyst Weigh In

Several research firms have commented on TSEM. Bank of America assumed coverage on Tower Semiconductor in a research note on Friday, August 7th. They issued a “buy” rating and a $367.00 target price on the stock. Weiss Ratings downgraded shares of Tower Semiconductor from a “hold (c)” rating to a “hold (c-)” rating in a research report on Tuesday, August 18th. Benchmark reaffirmed a “buy” rating on shares of Tower Semiconductor in a research report on Wednesday, August 5th. Stifel Nicolaus started coverage on Tower Semiconductor in a research report on Tuesday, September 1st. They set a “buy” rating and a $270.00 target price for the company. Finally, Barclays assumed coverage on shares of Tower Semiconductor in a research note on Friday, September 18th. They issued an “overweight” rating and a $310.00 price objective on the stock. One research analyst has rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, seven have issued a Buy rating and two have issued a Hold rating to the stock. Based on data from MarketBeat, Tower Semiconductor has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $316.00.

Tower Semiconductor Price Performance

The company has a current ratio of 4.91, a quick ratio of 4.31 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.04. The business’s 50-day simple moving average is $226.96 and its two-hundred day simple moving average is $230.62. The firm has a market cap of $25.43 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 88.91 and a beta of 0.89.

Tower Semiconductor (NASDAQ:TSEM) last announced its quarterly earnings data on Tuesday, August 4th. The semiconductor company reported $0.88 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $0.76 by $0.12. The company had revenue of $460.08 million for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $454.68 million. Tower Semiconductor had a return on equity of 9.83% and a net margin of 16.94%.The firm’s revenue was up 23.7% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same period in the previous year, the business earned $0.41 EPS. As a group, research analysts expect that Tower Semiconductor Ltd. will post 3.56 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Insider Buying and Selling at Tower Semiconductor

In other news, CEO Russell Ellwanger sold 104,226 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Tuesday, August 11th. The stock was sold at an average price of $248.34, for a total transaction of $25,883,484.84. Following the transaction, the chief executive officer directly owned 526,788 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $130,822,531.92. This represents a 16.52% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available through this link. Also, Director Yoav Chelouche sold 232 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction dated Thursday, September 10th. The shares were sold at an average price of $215.06, for a total transaction of $49,893.92. Following the completion of the transaction, the director directly owned 33,734 shares in the company, valued at approximately $7,254,834.04. The trade was a 0.68% decrease in their position. The SEC filing for this sale provides additional information. Over the last ninety days, insiders sold 181,767 shares of company stock valued at $45,610,065. Insiders own 1.00% of the company’s stock.

Institutional Inflows and Outflows

Large investors have recently made changes to their positions in the company. Janus Henderson Group PLC boosted its position in Tower Semiconductor by 0.6% in the first quarter. Janus Henderson Group PLC now owns 1,081,175 shares of the semiconductor company’s stock worth $189,723,000 after purchasing an additional 6,458 shares during the last quarter. Turiya Advisors Asia Ltd bought a new stake in Tower Semiconductor during the 4th quarter valued at $172,848,000. E20 Capital Ltd purchased a new stake in shares of Tower Semiconductor in the first quarter worth about $107,708,000. SG Americas Securities LLC purchased a new position in shares of Tower Semiconductor during the 1st quarter valued at $85,435,000. Finally, Swiss National Bank boosted its position in shares of Tower Semiconductor by 86.0% during the 1st quarter. Swiss National Bank now owns 414,850 shares of the semiconductor company’s stock valued at $70,625,000 after acquiring an additional 191,839 shares during the last quarter. 70.51% of the stock is owned by institutional investors.

Tower Semiconductor Company Profile

Tower Semiconductor Ltd. is an Israel-based specialty semiconductor foundry that manufactures integrated circuits for fabless semiconductor companies, integrated device manufacturers and other technology companies. Rather than selling products under a broad consumer brand, Tower provides wafer fabrication, process technology and manufacturing services tailored to customers’ chip designs.

The company specializes in analog and mixed-signal semiconductors, radio-frequency components, power-management devices, CMOS image sensors and other specialty technologies.