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 Lam Research (LRCX Quick QuoteLRCX - Free Report) ten years ago? It may not have been easy to hold on to LRCX for all that time, but if you did, how much would your investment be worth today?

Lam Research's Business In-Depth

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

Established in 1980 and headquartered in Fremont, CA, Lam Research Corporation supplies wafer fabrication equipment and services to the semiconductor industry.

Its products are used by semiconductor manufacturers in front-end and WLP processes, creating memory, microprocessors, and other logic integrated circuits for a broad range of electronic devices.

The MOS process of making integrated circuits involve the deposition of many layers of materials on a semiconductor wafer. Each layer is prepared using a pattern on a photomask, cleaning off the excess material and then exposing to light sources to change the chemical composition of the layer. The final wafer is then planarized, cut into individual die, electrical leads attached and packaged.

Lam's product offerings in deposition and etch address numerous critical steps in the fabrication process with the goal of reducing defect rates, improving yields, lowering costs and reducing the processing time.

Notably, Lam serves three market segments — Memory, Foundry and Logic/Other from where it generated 43.1%, 37.6% and 19.3% of its total revenues in fiscal 2023, respectively.

The revenue distribution by geography in fiscal 2023 was as follows — Korea contributed 20.4%, Taiwan 20%, Japan 10.1%, China 25.6%, U.S accounted for 9.6%, Europe 6.6% and South East Asia contributed 7.8%.

Being a leading producer of specialized equipment, most of the competition comes from other large equipment makers, such as KLA and Applied Materials, Inc.

Bottom Line

Putting together a successful investment portfolio takes a combination of research, patience, and a little bit of risk. For Lam Research, 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 March 2014 would be worth $18,137.44, or a 1,713.74% gain, as of March 1, 2024. Investors should keep in mind that this return excludes dividends but includes price appreciation.

In comparison, the S&P 500 gained 174.07% and the price of gold went up 48.34% over the same time frame.

Analysts are anticipating more upside for LRCX.

Lam Research is benefiting from strength across 3D DRAM and advanced packaging technologies. Growing etch and deposition intensity owing to increasing technology inflections in 3D architectures, is a positive. Shares have outperformed the industry over the past year. However, weakness in the systems business, primarily due to sluggish memory spending, is a major concern. Although sluggish wafer fabrication equipment spending remains a concern, improvement in the outlook for the same owing to modest memory recovery, is a positive. For 2024, WFE spending is expected to be in the mid-high $80 billion range. NAND is expected to benefit from technology upgrades, while DRAM is likely to benefit from node conversions and capacity additions in HBM. Meanwhile, Lam Research's leading-edge investments are likely to benefit Foundry/Logic category.

The stock has jumped 12.74% over the past four weeks. Additionally, no earnings estimate has gone lower in the past two months, compared to 9 higher, for fiscal 2024; the consensus estimate has moved up as well.