Joseph John Corso Sells 4,191 Shares of nLight (NASDAQ:LASR) Stock

nLight (NASDAQ:LASR) CFO Joseph Corso sold 4,191 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction on Thursday, September 3rd. The shares were sold at an average price of $40.69, for a total transaction of $170,531.79. Following the transaction, the chief financial officer owned 165,724 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $6,743,309.56. The trade was a 2.47% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is accessible 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 Friday, September 4th, Joseph Corso sold 3,524 shares of nLight stock. The shares were sold at an average price of $41.49, for a total transaction of $146,210.76.

nLight Price Performance

NASDAQ LASR opened at $40.99 on Thursday. The company’s fifty day moving average is $57.70 and its two-hundred day moving average is $64.24. nLight has a 52-week low of $27.22 and a 52-week high of $86.95. The firm has a market capitalization of $2.36 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of -163.96 and a beta of 2.30.

nLight (NASDAQ:LASR) last issued its quarterly earnings results on Thursday, August 6th. The company reported $0.15 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $0.14 by $0.01. The firm had revenue of $82.59 million for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $78.58 million. nLight had a negative return on equity of 2.83% and a negative net margin of 4.02%.The company’s quarterly revenue was up 33.8% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same period in the previous year, the company posted $0.06 earnings per share. As a group, sell-side analysts expect that nLight will post -0.19 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

A number of research firms have recently commented on LASR. Stifel Nicolaus raised their price objective on shares of nLight from $75.00 to $85.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a report on Thursday, May 21st. UBS Group set a $90.00 target price 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. Weiss Ratings reissued a “sell (d-)” rating on shares of nLight in a research report on Friday, July 17th. Finally, Craig Hallum raised their price target on shares of nLight from $80.00 to $100.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a research note on Thursday, July 9th. One research analyst has rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, eight have given a Buy rating, one has given a Hold rating and one has given a Sell rating to the stock. According to data from MarketBeat.com, the company presently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus target price of $87.94.

Institutional Investors Weigh In On nLight

Several institutional investors and hedge funds have recently made changes to their positions in LASR. Lisanti Capital Growth LLC boosted its holdings in shares of nLight by 23.0% in the 4th quarter. Lisanti Capital Growth LLC now owns 103,978 shares of the company’s stock worth $3,900,000 after acquiring an additional 19,435 shares in the last quarter. Amundi acquired a new stake in nLight during the 1st quarter valued at $1,023,000. Vanguard Group Inc. raised its position in nLight by 2.6% in the 4th quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 4,989,758 shares of the company’s stock valued at $187,166,000 after purchasing an additional 125,446 shares during the last quarter. Rice Hall James & Associates LLC bought a new position in nLight in the 2nd quarter valued at $3,740,000. Finally, Lazard Asset Management LLC acquired a new position in nLight in the first quarter worth $1,847,000. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 83.88% of the company’s stock.

About nLight

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.