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Here's How Much You'd Have If You Invested $1000 in KLA a Decade Ago
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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.
The fear of missing out, or FOMO, also plays a factor in investing, especially with particular tech giants, as well as popular consumer-facing stocks.
What if you'd invested in KLA (KLAC - Free Report) ten years ago? It may not have been easy to hold on to KLAC for all that time, but if you did, how much would your investment be worth today?
KLA's Business In-Depth
With that in mind, let's take a look at KLA's main business drivers.
San Jose, CA-based KLA Corporation is an original equipment manufacturer (OEM) of process diagnostics and control (PDC) equipment and yield management solutions required for the fabrication of semiconductor integrated circuits (ICs) or chips. The company has a comprehensive portfolio of products addressing each major PDC subsegment—photomask (reticle) inspection, wafer inspection/defect review and metrology.
Reticle production is vital to the semiconductor device formation process. Reticles are used to control the precise deposition of materials onto the wafer, which ultimately change its chemical characteristics, imparting specific functionalities to the ICs thus created. Inspection and metrology tools measure the quality of the reticles, helping to improve reticle production yields. As a result of the broader applicability of semiconductors, shrinking form factors and increasing functionalities of individual chips, reticle design and production are growing in importance. Intel and Taiwan Semiconductor were the largest customers in the last three years, accounting for more than 10% of total sales in each year.
KLA reported revenues of $10.496 billion in fiscal 2023. Product revenues accounted for 79.8% while the rest came from Service segment.
KLA’s two main product lines are defect inspection and metrology. The company’s defect inspection tools have very broad application in chip, wafer, reticle, storage, compound semiconductor and MEMS manufacturing. Metrology tools are used to gather critical dimension measurements of the wafer and process dimensions such as film thickness, lithography overlay and surface profiling. The company’s metrology products are used in chip, wafer, reticle and solar device manufacturing. KLA also offers other products and services.
In addition to new tools, KLA also offers a comprehensive portfolio of refurbished tools that upgrade and improve yields of existing equipment under the KT-Certified program. Refurbished tools are currently sold to IC, reticle, substrate, MEMS and data storage manufacturers.
Although KLA is a major player in each of its served markets, it faces competition from other large equipment suppliers such as Applied Materials and Hitachi High-Technologies Corporation.
Bottom Line
Putting together a successful investment portfolio takes a combination of research, patience, and a little bit of risk. For KLA, if you bought shares a decade ago, you're likely feeling really good about your investment today.
According to our calculations, a $1000 investment made in August 2013 would be worth $8,364.87, or a 736.49% gain, as of August 18, 2023. Investors should keep in mind that this return excludes dividends but includes price appreciation.
Compare this to the S&P 500's rally of 163.94% and gold's return of 32.22% over the same time frame.
Analysts are forecasting more upside for KLAC too.
KLA’s fourth-quarter fiscal 2023 results were negatively impacted by global macroeconomic headwinds and weak demand for semiconductors due to excess inventories. The decline in the top line was attributed to softness in Semiconductor Process Control and PCB, Display and Component Inspection segments. Also, weakness in the wafer inspection business was a concern. However, demand for KLA’s solutions in automotive and other markets remain strong. KLA witnessed strong momentum in the Specialty Semiconductor Process segment. KLA expects demand to stabilize in the remaining half of 2023. KLA expects gross margin to trend near 61%. Moreover, over the long term, solid momentum across the Semiconductor Process Control and Specialty Semiconductor Process segments are expected to aid growth. KLA shares have outperformed the industry year-to-date.
The stock has jumped 5.08% over the past four weeks. Additionally, no earnings estimate has gone lower in the past two months, compared to 8 higher, for fiscal 2023; the consensus estimate has moved up as well.
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Here's How Much You'd Have If You Invested $1000 in KLA a Decade Ago
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.
The fear of missing out, or FOMO, also plays a factor in investing, especially with particular tech giants, as well as popular consumer-facing stocks.
What if you'd invested in KLA (KLAC - Free Report) ten years ago? It may not have been easy to hold on to KLAC for all that time, but if you did, how much would your investment be worth today?
KLA's Business In-Depth
With that in mind, let's take a look at KLA's main business drivers.
San Jose, CA-based KLA Corporation is an original equipment manufacturer (OEM) of process diagnostics and control (PDC) equipment and yield management solutions required for the fabrication of semiconductor integrated circuits (ICs) or chips. The company has a comprehensive portfolio of products addressing each major PDC subsegment—photomask (reticle) inspection, wafer inspection/defect review and metrology.
Reticle production is vital to the semiconductor device formation process. Reticles are used to control the precise deposition of materials onto the wafer, which ultimately change its chemical characteristics, imparting specific functionalities to the ICs thus created. Inspection and metrology tools measure the quality of the reticles, helping to improve reticle production yields. As a result of the broader applicability of semiconductors, shrinking form factors and increasing functionalities of individual chips, reticle design and production are growing in importance. Intel and Taiwan Semiconductor were the largest customers in the last three years, accounting for more than 10% of total sales in each year.
KLA reported revenues of $10.496 billion in fiscal 2023. Product revenues accounted for 79.8% while the rest came from Service segment.
KLA’s two main product lines are defect inspection and metrology. The company’s defect inspection tools have very broad application in chip, wafer, reticle, storage, compound semiconductor and MEMS manufacturing. Metrology tools are used to gather critical dimension measurements of the wafer and process dimensions such as film thickness, lithography overlay and surface profiling. The company’s metrology products are used in chip, wafer, reticle and solar device manufacturing. KLA also offers other products and services.
In addition to new tools, KLA also offers a comprehensive portfolio of refurbished tools that upgrade and improve yields of existing equipment under the KT-Certified program. Refurbished tools are currently sold to IC, reticle, substrate, MEMS and data storage manufacturers.
Although KLA is a major player in each of its served markets, it faces competition from other large equipment suppliers such as Applied Materials and Hitachi High-Technologies Corporation.
Bottom Line
Putting together a successful investment portfolio takes a combination of research, patience, and a little bit of risk. For KLA, if you bought shares a decade ago, you're likely feeling really good about your investment today.
According to our calculations, a $1000 investment made in August 2013 would be worth $8,364.87, or a 736.49% gain, as of August 18, 2023. Investors should keep in mind that this return excludes dividends but includes price appreciation.
Compare this to the S&P 500's rally of 163.94% and gold's return of 32.22% over the same time frame.
Analysts are forecasting more upside for KLAC too.
KLA’s fourth-quarter fiscal 2023 results were negatively impacted by global macroeconomic headwinds and weak demand for semiconductors due to excess inventories. The decline in the top line was attributed to softness in Semiconductor Process Control and PCB, Display and Component Inspection segments. Also, weakness in the wafer inspection business was a concern. However, demand for KLA’s solutions in automotive and other markets remain strong. KLA witnessed strong momentum in the Specialty Semiconductor Process segment. KLA expects demand to stabilize in the remaining half of 2023. KLA expects gross margin to trend near 61%. Moreover, over the long term, solid momentum across the Semiconductor Process Control and Specialty Semiconductor Process segments are expected to aid growth. KLA shares have outperformed the industry year-to-date.
The stock has jumped 5.08% over the past four weeks. Additionally, no earnings estimate has gone lower in the past two months, compared to 8 higher, for fiscal 2023; the consensus estimate has moved up as well.