Published: November 29, 2025 – for informational purposes only, not investment advice.
Lam Research stock snapshot on November 29, 2025
Lam Research Corporation (NASDAQ: LRCX) is one of the core “picks-and-shovels” suppliers of wafer fabrication equipment to the global semiconductor industry. Its tools are used in etch, deposition and advanced packaging steps that underpin almost every cutting‑edge logic and memory chip, from data centers to smartphones. [1]
As of Friday’s close on November 28, 2025, Lam Research stock traded around $156 per share, leaving it:
- Roughly 7% below its 52‑week high of $167.15 set on November 10. [2]
- Up about 110–115% year to date, versus roughly 22% for the Technology Select Sector SPDR ETF (XLK). [3]
- More than 175% above its 52‑week low near $56.32. [4]
On a fundamentals snapshot, aggregated data providers put Lam at:
- Market cap: around $195–197 billion
- Trailing P/E: ~34x
- Price-to-sales: roughly 10x
- Net margin: close to 30% on trailing twelve‑month revenue of about $19.6 billion. [5]
In short: LRCX is trading like what it is — a dominant, highly profitable AI‑levered equipment vendor that has already had a monster year.
The newest headlines around LRCX (up to November 29, 2025)
1. Oregon “Silicon Forest” expansion becomes the story of the week
On November 28, analysis from Simply Wall St and others highlighted Lam’s latest physical expansion: a US$65 million, four‑story, 120,000‑square‑foot office and R&D building in Tualatin, Oregon (within the Portland‑area “Silicon Forest”). The facility adds capacity for up to 700 employees and extends a multi‑year build‑out of Lam’s campus there. [6]
Lam’s own November 21 press material describes the project as part of deepening its investment in the “Silicon Forest” to accelerate semiconductor leadership in the AI era, tying the site to advanced process and packaging R&D needed for AI accelerators and high‑bandwidth memory (HBM). [7]
Why it matters for the stock:
- It reinforces that Lam is spending into the up‑cycle, not harvesting it.
- It anchors more high‑skill engineering jobs in the U.S., something regulators and customers like to see for strategic AI infrastructure.
- It supports Lam’s growing push into advanced packaging and 3D integration — key bottlenecks for AI chips.
2. “Is LRCX outperforming the technology sector?” (short answer: yes)
A November 27 piece syndicated by Barchart notes that Lam Research has:
- Gained about 49.7% over the last three months, far outpacing XLK’s ~7.9% return.
- Surged roughly 114.8% year to date, versus 22.1% for XLK. [8]
The article also highlights that:
- LRCX trades roughly 7% below its 52‑week high of $167.15.
- The stock has been trading above its 50‑day and 200‑day moving averages since early May, supporting a strong technical uptrend. [9]
Barchart’s aggregation of 31 analyst views gives LRCX a “Moderate Buy” consensus rating with a mean price target of $162.78, implying low‑ to mid‑single‑digit upside from the mid‑$150s. [10]
3. Zacks / Finviz: AI demand, HBM and valuation
On November 25, a Zacks‑authored note (syndicated via Finviz) flagged that LRCX has delivered an eye‑popping 109% YTD price gain, beating both its semiconductor equipment peers and the broader electronics‑semiconductors group. [11]
Key points from that coverage:
- In the September quarter (Lam’s fiscal Q1 2026), revenue rose about 28% year on year to $5.32 billion, ahead of consensus.
- Non‑GAAP EPS of $1.26 beat Wall Street estimates and was roughly mid‑40s percent higher than a year ago, helped by margin expansion. [12]
- Management has indicated that shipments tied to gate‑all‑around transistors and advanced packaging exceeded $1 billion in 2024 and could surpass $3 billion in 2025, thanks to AI data‑center demand. [13]
Zacks argues that, even after the rally, Lam’s forward P/E in the high‑20s still compares reasonably with the broader semiconductor equipment group, especially given its growth profile. [14]
4. Official company news: dividends, earnings and guidance
From Lam’s own newsroom and press‑release feeds, the main 2025 headlines now in the rear‑view mirror but still driving the narrative are: [15]
- Dividend increase and latest payout
- On August 28, Lam announced a 13% dividend hike, lifting its quarterly payout from $0.23 to $0.26 per share. [16]
- On November 6, the board declared another $0.26 quarterly dividend, payable January 7, 2026 to shareholders of record on December 3, 2025. At a ~$156 share price, that’s a yield of roughly 0.7% — low, but growing. [17]
- Q1 FY2026 results (quarter ended September 28, 2025)
- Revenue: $5.32 billion, up about 27.7% year over year and 3% quarter‑on‑quarter.
- Non‑GAAP gross margin: ~50.6%; non‑GAAP operating margin: ~35%.
- Non‑GAAP EPS:$1.26, beating Street estimates by a few percent. [18]
- Guidance for the December quarter: revenue around $5.2 billion ± $300 million and non‑GAAP EPS around $1.15 ± $0.10, ahead of earlier analyst expectations at the time. [19]
- Conference and investor visibility
- On November 18, Lam announced that CEO Tim Archer and CFO Doug Bettinger would present at an upcoming investor conference, keeping the company visible in the AI‑and‑chips conversation. [20]
5. Analyst and governance angles
Quiver Quant’s CEO‑pay and forecasting page, which rolls together filings and analyst data, notes: [21]
- Recent analyst reports have been overwhelmingly Buy or Outperform, with no recent formal “Sell” calls in the tracked sample.
- Across 40+ Wall Street analysts, TickerNerd aggregates a median 12‑month price target of $165, with a range from $84 to $200. That median implies about 6% upside from the ~$155–156 trading range. [22]
- UBS most recently bumped its target to $175 while reiterating a positive rating, joining a crowd of large banks with targets between $145 and $200. [23]
In other words, Wall Street likes the story but, after a ~2x run in a year, is mostly modeling modest further upside rather than another vertical move.
What the latest quarter tells us about Lam’s fundamentals
The September 2025 quarter is doing a lot of heavy lifting in the current LRCX narrative:
- Revenue at $5.32 billion came in above expectations and almost 28% higher than a year ago. [24]
- Non‑GAAP operating margin around 35% and net margin near 30% underscore that Lam is minting cash even while it spends on R&D and facilities. [25]
- The company guided the next quarter’s revenue and EPS above the then‑current consensus, signaling confidence that AI and memory‑related orders are not just a one‑quarter blip. [26]
StockStory’s breakdown of the call adds some crucial color: [27]
- AI infrastructure and high‑bandwidth memory (HBM) were called out as key drivers of upside.
- Management highlighted robust demand for upgrades and installed base services, not just new tools — a good sign for recurring cash flow.
- China accounted for about 43% of revenue in the quarter (largely domestic Chinese chipmakers), with management expecting that share to drop below 30% in 2026 as export restrictions tighten and revenue tilts toward multinationals elsewhere.
That last point is the double‑edged sword: China is still the single biggest revenue region, which both juices current numbers and concentrates geopolitical risk.
AI, HBM and advanced packaging: the core of the LRCX bull case
Most of the bullish narrative around Lam boils down to one thing: AI isn’t just about GPUs; it’s about all the messy process technology underneath them.
A recent Lam blog post on advanced packaging spells it out: AI chips like NVIDIA’s H100 arrange a powerful GPU alongside multiple HBM stacks using chip‑on‑wafer‑on‑substrate (CoWoS) packaging, with dense vertical and horizontal interconnects. These designs lean heavily on etch, deposition and packaging steps Lam supplies tools for. [28]
From public company commentary and third‑party analysis:
- Lam has said shipments related to gate‑all‑around transistors and advanced packaging topped $1 billion in 2024, with expectations to exceed $3 billion in 2025, as AI data centers ramp. [29]
- New products like VECTOR TEOS 3D, launched in September 2025, target inter‑die gapfill and other advanced packaging challenges for chiplet‑based 3D architectures — exactly what modern AI accelerators use. [30]
- A September 2025 cross‑licensing and collaboration deal with JSR/Inpria focuses on dry‑resist EUV lithography and next‑generation patterning materials, tightening Lam’s grip on the most advanced logic nodes. [31]
Layer on the Oregon “Silicon Forest” expansion, and the picture is: Lam is trying to own more of the hardest problems in AI manufacturing — not just ride general semiconductor capex.
Valuation and analyst expectations: is the price already rich?
On most common metrics, Lam is no longer cheap, but it’s not absurd by AI‑bubble standards either:
- Trailing P/E ~34x, forward P/E high‑20s to low‑30s, depending on the estimate set. [32]
- Price/sales ~10x, reflecting high margins and high expectations. [33]
- Operating margin mid‑30s, ROE above 60%, net margin near 30% — unusually strong for heavy equipment. [34]
Consensus targets:
- TickerNerd’s aggregation of 43 analysts: median $165, high $200, low $84, with 23 Buy / 10 Hold / 1 Sell ratings. [35]
- Barchart’s subset: mean target $162.78 and a “Moderate Buy” stance. [36]
Taken together, most models see mid‑single‑digit percentage upside from current levels over the next 12 months, not a 2023‑style rocket. That’s exactly what you’d expect after a stock has already more than doubled in a year but remains tied to secular AI growth.
Dividend‑wise, Lam is signaling confidence through steady hikes, but the yield — under 1% — is clearly more about signaling and shareholder friendliness than income. [37]
Key risks: what could go wrong from here?
No stock only has upside, and Lam is no exception. Based on recent disclosures and commentary, the main risk clusters are: [38]
- China exposure and export controls
- Around 43% of recent quarterly revenue came from China, mostly domestic chipmakers.
- New and evolving U.S. export restrictions on advanced fab tools for Chinese entities are expected to push that share below 30% in 2026.
- Lam expects some of that to be offset by spending from global customers in Korea, Taiwan, the U.S. and Europe — but there’s execution risk.
- Cyclicality of semiconductor capex
- AI feels like a super‑cycle, but memory and logic capex still go through brutal busts.
- The current numbers bake in a world where HBM, NAND upgrades and AI data‑center builds stay strong into 2026; a slowdown would hit orders fast.
- Rich-ish valuation + high expectations
- With revenue growth currently near 30% and EPS growing faster, a mid‑30s P/E is defensible. But it doesn’t leave much room for big missteps. [39]
- If AI capacity proves temporarily overbuilt, or if export rules tighten again, the multiple could compress quickly.
- Technology and competition
- Lam competes directly with other very sophisticated players like Applied Materials, KLA and ASML in various parts of the process flow. [40]
- Its bets on advanced packaging, dry‑resist EUV and gate‑all‑around need to keep winning design slots; otherwise, AI‑driven growth could skew toward rivals.
Bottom line on Lam Research stock as of November 29, 2025
Stepping back, here’s the simplified picture for LRCX right now:
- The business is firing on most cylinders: revenue and EPS are beating expectations, margins are at record or near‑record levels, and Lam is deeply embedded in AI‑critical technologies like HBM and advanced packaging. [41]
- The strategic moves — a bigger Tualatin R&D footprint, partnerships on EUV materials, and new packaging tools — all lean into that AI thesis rather than diversify away from it. [42]
- The stock has already done the easy part, more than doubling this year and significantly outperforming both peers and the broader tech sector. Most analysts now see incremental upside, not a bargain. [43]
For anyone tracking Lam Research, the next things to watch after November 29 are:
- The December‑quarter results versus that $5.2B / $1.15 guidance.
- How quickly the Tualatin and other expansions translate into new products and share gains.
- Any new export‑control moves, especially affecting China, and how Lam’s geographic revenue mix shifts in response. [44]
References
1. www.stocktitan.net, 2. markets.financialcontent.com, 3. markets.financialcontent.com, 4. tickernerd.com, 5. tickernerd.com, 6. simplywall.st, 7. www.chartmill.com, 8. markets.financialcontent.com, 9. markets.financialcontent.com, 10. markets.financialcontent.com, 11. finviz.com, 12. finviz.com, 13. finviz.com, 14. finviz.com, 15. newsroom.lamresearch.com, 16. newsroom.lamresearch.com, 17. www.stocktitan.net, 18. newsroom.lamresearch.com, 19. newsroom.lamresearch.com, 20. newsroom.lamresearch.com, 21. www.quiverquant.com, 22. tickernerd.com, 23. tickernerd.com, 24. newsroom.lamresearch.com, 25. newsroom.lamresearch.com, 26. newsroom.lamresearch.com, 27. stockstory.org, 28. newsroom.lamresearch.com, 29. finviz.com, 30. newsroom.lamresearch.com, 31. newsroom.lamresearch.com, 32. tickernerd.com, 33. tickernerd.com, 34. tickernerd.com, 35. tickernerd.com, 36. markets.financialcontent.com, 37. www.stocktitan.net, 38. newsroom.lamresearch.com, 39. tickernerd.com, 40. finviz.com, 41. newsroom.lamresearch.com, 42. www.gurufocus.com, 43. markets.financialcontent.com, 44. newsroom.lamresearch.com
