ASE Technology (NYSE:ASX) Shares Gap Up – Here’s Why

ASE Technology Holding Co., Ltd. (NYSE:ASX)’s stock price gapped up before the market opened on Friday . The stock had previously closed at $32.64, but opened at $35.10. ASE Technology shares last traded at $34.5090, with a volume of 1,597,000 shares trading hands.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

A number of analysts have weighed in on ASX shares. Wall Street Zen upgraded shares of ASE Technology from a “hold” rating to a “buy” rating in a research note on Sunday, April 5th. Zacks Research upgraded shares of ASE Technology from a “hold” rating to a “strong-buy” rating in a research note on Tuesday, May 5th. One analyst has rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, one has issued a Buy rating and one has assigned a Hold rating to the stock. According to data from MarketBeat, the stock has a consensus rating of “Buy”.

ASE Technology Price Performance

The business’s 50 day moving average price is $27.11 and its 200 day moving average price is $21.31. The stock has a market capitalization of $77.33 billion, a P/E ratio of 51.14, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 0.63 and a beta of 1.68. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.53, a current ratio of 1.15 and a quick ratio of 0.89.

ASE Technology (NYSE:ASX) last announced its quarterly earnings results on Wednesday, April 29th. The semiconductor company reported $0.20 EPS for the quarter, topping analysts’ consensus estimates of $0.17 by $0.03. ASE Technology had a net margin of 7.03% and a return on equity of 13.48%. The firm had revenue of $5.43 billion during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $5.32 billion. Sell-side analysts forecast that ASE Technology Holding Co., Ltd. will post 1.05 EPS for the current year.

Institutional Trading of ASE Technology

A number of large investors have recently made changes to their positions in the stock. Lazard Asset Management LLC grew its stake in shares of ASE Technology by 11.1% in the fourth 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 during the period. Morgan Stanley grew its stake in shares of ASE Technology by 14.3% in the fourth 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 during the period. Bank of America Corp DE grew its stake in shares of ASE Technology by 9.6% in 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 acquiring an additional 846,300 shares during the period. UBS Group AG grew its stake in shares of ASE Technology by 11.4% in the fourth quarter. UBS Group AG now owns 9,038,322 shares of the semiconductor company’s stock worth $145,517,000 after acquiring an additional 922,692 shares during the period. Finally, Rafferty Asset Management LLC grew its stake in shares of ASE Technology by 50.9% in the second quarter. Rafferty Asset Management LLC now owns 7,392,190 shares of the semiconductor company’s stock worth $76,361,000 after acquiring an additional 2,491,918 shares during the period. 6.80% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors.

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.