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Valued at a market cap of $89.1 billion, KLA Corporation (KLAC) designs, manufactures, and markets process control, process-enabling, and yield management solutions for the semiconductor and related electronics industries. The Milpitas, California-based company has a comprehensive portfolio of products addressing each major process diagnostics and control (PDC), reticle inspection, wafer inspection, defect review, and metrology.
Companies worth $10 billion or more are generally described as “large-cap” stocks, and KLAC fits right into that category, with its market cap exceeding this threshold. The company is a global technology leader known for developing industry-leading equipment and services that enable innovation throughout the electronics industry.
Despite its strengths, the semiconductor company has slipped 28.3% from its 52-week high of $896.32, achieved on Jul.11. Shares of KLAC have declined 11.7% over the past three months, significantly underperforming the broader S&P 500 Index’s ($SPX) 10.4% rise over the same time frame.
Moreover, over the past 52 weeks, KLAC has gained 19.6%, underperforming SPX’s 33% return over the same time frame. On a YTD basis, shares of KLAC are up nearly 10.6%, lagging behind SPX’s 27.4% gains.
To confirm its bearish trend, KLAC has been trading below its 200-day and 50-day moving average since mid-October.
KLAC has underperformed over the past year primarily due to uncertainty caused by US restrictions on semiconductor technology exports to China, which generally represents a significant portion of KLAC's annual revenue.
Shares of KLAC plunged 3.7% following its Q1 earnings release on Oct. 30 despite delivering a robust performance. Its revenue improved 18.5% year-over-year to $2.84 billion, while its adjusted EPS of $7.33 increased 27.7% from a year ago, and both of them exceeded Wall Street expectations. The company benefited from strong double-digit revenue growth, particularly in the foundry logic and memory sectors. Moreover, KLAC also provided strong revenue guidance for the next quarter, 3.5% above analyst forecasts.
However, KLAC has outperformed its rival, Applied Materials, Inc. (AMAT), which gained 17.7% over the past 52 weeks and nearly 6.2% on a YTD basis.
Despite KLAC’s recent underperformance, analysts remain moderately optimistic about its prospects. The stock has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” from the 26 analysts covering it, and the mean price target of $823.38 suggests a modest 28.1% premium to its current levels.
