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If You Invested $1000 in Applied Materials 10 Years Ago, This Is How Much You'd Have Now

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For most investors, how much a stock's price changes over time is important. Not only can it impact your investment portfolio, but it can also help you compare investment results across sectors and industries.

FOMO, or the fear of missing out, also plays a role in investing, particularly with tech giants and popular consumer-facing stocks.

What if you'd invested in Applied Materials (AMAT - Free Report) ten years ago? It may not have been easy to hold on to AMAT for all that time, but if you did, how much would your investment be worth today?

Applied Materials' Business In-Depth

With that in mind, let's take a look at Applied Materials' main business drivers.

Headquartered in Santa Clara, California, Applied Materials is one of the world’s largest suppliers of equipment for the fabrication of semiconductor, flat panel liquid crystal displays (LCDs), and solar photovoltaic (PV) cells and modules. The company also offers deployment and support services related to the equipment supplied.

In fiscal year 2020, Applied reported results in three segments—Semiconductor Systems (62% of total 2020 revenue), Applied Global Services (26%) and Display and Adjacent Markets (12%).

Applied Materials’ Silicon segment offers equipment for front-end operations in the semiconductor manufacturing process. Front-end processes involve the deposition or implantation of multiple thin layers of electronically conductive, semiconductive and insulating materials onto and within a silicon wafer with the help of photomasks (reticles) to give multiple copies of integrated circuit devices.

With over 33,000 systems installed, the Applied Global Services segment goes a long way to ensure customer satisfaction and support. There are primarily three kinds of services offered.

Applied has developed technologies for significantly larger-sized wafers made of materials other than silicon. This has helped it expand its portfolio into equipment for thin film transistor (TFT) LCDs (made from glass) and OLED, which are used in smartphones, TVs and other consumer electronic devices. The company operates this business under the Display segment.

The Energy and Environmental Solutions segment primarily consists of the solar product line. Currently, the company offers equipment for manufacturing both wafer-based crystalline silicon (c-Si) and glass-based thin film used in the solar PV cell fabrication process.

Being a leading producer of specialized equipment, most of the competition comes from other large equipment makers, such as KLAC and LRCX.

Bottom Line

Anyone can invest, but building a successful investment portfolio requires research, patience, and a little bit of risk. So, if you had invested in Applied Materials ten years ago, you're likely feeling pretty good about your investment today.

According to our calculations, a $1000 investment made in April 2011 would be worth $8,859.68, or a 785.97% gain, as of April 7, 2021. Investors should keep in mind that this return excludes dividends but includes price appreciation.

In comparison, the S&P 500 gained 205.04% and the price of gold went up 14.53% over the same time frame.

Going forward, analysts are expecting more upside for AMAT.

Applied Materials is driven by strong momentum across Semiconductor Systems and Applied Global Services. Further, solid demand for silicon in several applications across various markets remains a tailwind. Additionally, growing momentum among long-term service agreements is contributing well. Furthermore, increased customer spending in foundry and logic on the back of rising need for specialty nodes in automotive, power, 5G rollout, IoT, communications and image sensor markets, is a major positive. Also, strong momentum in conductor etches is benefiting the company’s position in DRAM and NAND. Notably, the stock has outperformed the industry it belongs to over a year. However, market uncertainties continue to persist. Further, mounting expenses are concerns. Also, rising competition poses risk to the company’s market position.

Shares have gained 35.36% over the past four weeks and there have been 10 higher earnings estimate revisions for fiscal 2021 compared to none lower. The consensus estimate has moved up as well.


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