Zacks Research Upgrades ASE Technology (NYSE:ASX) to “Hold”

ASE Technology (NYSE:ASX) was upgraded by equities research analysts at Zacks Research from a “strong sell” rating to a “hold” rating in a research note issued to investors on Monday,Zacks.com reports.

Several other equities analysts have also weighed in on ASX. Weiss Ratings reaffirmed a “hold (c)” rating on shares of ASE Technology in a report on Wednesday, January 21st. Wall Street Zen raised shares of ASE Technology from a “hold” rating to a “buy” rating in a report on Sunday. One research analyst has rated the stock with a Buy rating and two have given a Hold rating to the company’s stock. According to data from MarketBeat.com, the stock currently has a consensus rating of “Hold”.

ASE Technology Price Performance

NYSE:ASX opened at $22.17 on Monday. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.57, a current ratio of 1.28 and a quick ratio of 1.00. The firm has a market cap of $49.17 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 38.22, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 0.92 and a beta of 1.46. The company has a 50 day moving average price of $22.06 and a 200-day moving average price of $17.42. ASE Technology has a 1-year low of $6.94 and a 1-year high of $25.28.

ASE Technology (NYSE:ASX) last posted its earnings results on Thursday, February 5th. The semiconductor company reported $0.21 earnings per share for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $0.20 by $0.01. The firm had revenue of $5.22 billion during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $5.47 billion. ASE Technology had a net margin of 6.31% and a return on equity of 12.00%. Equities research analysts forecast that ASE Technology will post 0.76 EPS for the current year.

Institutional Investors Weigh In On ASE Technology

Several institutional investors and hedge funds have recently added to or reduced their stakes in the stock. Lazard Asset Management LLC increased its holdings in ASE Technology by 11.1% in the 4th quarter. Lazard Asset Management LLC now owns 20,010,829 shares of the semiconductor company’s stock worth $322,174,000 after acquiring an additional 1,997,888 shares in the last quarter. Morgan Stanley increased its holdings in ASE Technology by 14.3% in the 4th quarter. Morgan Stanley now owns 10,607,588 shares of the semiconductor company’s stock worth $170,782,000 after acquiring an additional 1,330,580 shares in the last quarter. Bank of America Corp DE grew its holdings in shares of ASE Technology by 9.6% during the third quarter. Bank of America Corp DE now owns 9,661,484 shares of the semiconductor company’s stock worth $107,146,000 after buying an additional 846,300 shares in the last quarter. UBS Group AG grew its holdings in shares of ASE Technology by 11.4% during the fourth quarter. UBS Group AG now owns 9,038,322 shares of the semiconductor company’s stock worth $145,517,000 after buying an additional 922,692 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Rafferty Asset Management LLC grew its holdings in shares of ASE Technology by 50.9% during the second quarter. Rafferty Asset Management LLC now owns 7,392,190 shares of the semiconductor company’s stock worth $76,361,000 after buying an additional 2,491,918 shares in the last quarter. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 6.80% of the company’s stock.

ASE Technology Company Profile

ASE Technology Holding Co, Ltd. (NYSE: ASX), commonly referred to as ASE, is a Taiwan-based provider of semiconductor assembly and testing services. The company focuses on back-end semiconductor manufacturing and related services that prepare integrated circuits and other semiconductor devices for final use. Its core activities include advanced IC packaging, final testing, wafer probing, and related engineering and supply-chain support for semiconductor customers.

ASE offers a range of products and technical capabilities designed to meet increasingly complex packaging and system-in-package requirements.