Jim Cramer’s Latest Lightning Round: 5 Stock Recommendations

3. Lam Research Corporation (NASDAQ:LRCX)

Number of Hedge Fund Investors: 67

Jim Cramer has been extremely bullish on semiconductor stocks these days. Recently, while recommending Applied Materials Inc. (NASDAQ:AMAT), Cramer also said investors would want to own Lam Research Corporation (NASDAQ:LRCX) since he thinks Lam Research Corporation (NASDAQ:LRCX) and Applied Materials Inc. (NASDAQ:AMAT) are “terrific.” In January Lam Research Corporation (NASDAQ:LRCX) posted second quarter results after which Goldman Sachs analyst Toshiya Hari wrote a note on the stock saying Lam Research Corporation (NASDAQ:LRCX) is well positioned to outperform the market this year. The analyst also increased his price target on the stock to $912 from $700.

As of the end of the fourth quarter of 2023, 67 hedge funds out of the 933 hedge funds tracked by Insider Monkey had stakes in Lam Research Corporation (NASDAQ:LRCX).

Baron Opportunity Fund stated the following regarding Lam Research Corporation (NASDAQ:LRCX) in its fourth quarter 2023 investor letter:

“Lam Research Corporation (NASDAQ:LRCX) is a leading global supplier of wafer fabrication equipment (WFE) and services to the semiconductor industry. Lam’s products tend to focus on etch and deposition process steps and its tools are critical in the production of NAND and DRAM memory chips as well as logic devices. While the share of overall WFE spending looks relatively fragmented across the top four to five players in the industry, each of these leading companies tends to have significant share within smaller slices of the industry, creating a stable and favorable industry structure, with share shifts tending to only happen at times of technology transition in the broader industry. We purchased shares of Lam in the quarter as we believe we are at one of those key transition points in the industry that will disproportionately benefit Lam, with a move to gate-all-around transistors in logic creating an increasing need for complex deposition and etch process stops and the emergence of high-bandwidth memory and advanced packaging requiring increasingly complex high-aspect-ratio (i.e., very deep) etches, where Lam has virtually 100% market share. We also believe the market is underestimating the pent-up earnings power in the company as NAND WFE spending recovers in the coming years from one of its worst downcycles ever in 2023.”