Baillie Gifford & Co. Has $20.91 Million Holdings in Veeco Instruments Inc. (NASDAQ:VECO)

Baillie Gifford & Co. lifted its stake in shares of Veeco Instruments Inc. (NASDAQ:VECO) by 32.2% in the 3rd quarter, according to the company in its most recent filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission. The firm owned 631,011 shares of the semiconductor company’s stock after buying an additional 153,754 shares during the quarter. Baillie Gifford & Co. owned about 1.11% of Veeco Instruments worth $20,905,000 as of its most recent filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission.

Several other hedge funds also recently modified their holdings of the stock. Vanguard Group Inc. boosted its stake in Veeco Instruments by 5.8% during the first quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 7,131,073 shares of the semiconductor company’s stock worth $250,800,000 after acquiring an additional 391,346 shares in the last quarter. Driehaus Capital Management LLC boosted its position in shares of Veeco Instruments by 119.3% during the 2nd quarter. Driehaus Capital Management LLC now owns 1,458,288 shares of the semiconductor company’s stock worth $68,117,000 after purchasing an additional 793,429 shares in the last quarter. Assenagon Asset Management S.A. grew its stake in shares of Veeco Instruments by 5.6% in the 2nd quarter. Assenagon Asset Management S.A. now owns 598,014 shares of the semiconductor company’s stock valued at $27,933,000 after buying an additional 31,482 shares during the period. New York State Common Retirement Fund boosted its holdings in Veeco Instruments by 249.0% in the third quarter. New York State Common Retirement Fund now owns 430,757 shares of the semiconductor company’s stock worth $14,271,000 after acquiring an additional 307,348 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Silvercrest Asset Management Group LLC grew its stake in Veeco Instruments by 4.5% in the first quarter. Silvercrest Asset Management Group LLC now owns 384,310 shares of the semiconductor company’s stock valued at $13,516,000 after acquiring an additional 16,557 shares during the period. Institutional investors own 98.46% of the company’s stock.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

VECO has been the topic of a number of research reports. Northland Securities lowered their target price on Veeco Instruments from $53.00 to $47.00 and set an “outperform” rating on the stock in a research report on Wednesday, August 7th. Needham & Company LLC restated a “buy” rating and set a $55.00 price objective on shares of Veeco Instruments in a report on Wednesday, August 7th. Oppenheimer reduced their price objective on shares of Veeco Instruments from $45.00 to $40.00 and set an “outperform” rating for the company in a report on Thursday, November 7th. The Goldman Sachs Group decreased their target price on shares of Veeco Instruments from $35.00 to $30.00 and set a “neutral” rating for the company in a research report on Thursday, November 7th. Finally, StockNews.com raised shares of Veeco Instruments from a “sell” rating to a “hold” rating in a research report on Monday. Four analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and four have issued a buy rating to the company. According to data from MarketBeat.com, Veeco Instruments has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus target price of $42.14.

Insider Buying and Selling

In other Veeco Instruments news, CFO John P. Kiernan sold 2,500 shares of the stock in a transaction on Thursday, October 10th. The stock was sold at an average price of $32.63, for a total transaction of $81,575.00. Following the completion of the transaction, the chief financial officer now directly owns 82,642 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $2,696,608.46. This represents a 0.00 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is accessible through this link. In the last quarter, insiders have sold 7,500 shares of company stock valued at $225,850. 2.20% of the stock is owned by company insiders.

Veeco Instruments Stock Down 0.5 %

VECO stock opened at $27.97 on Wednesday. The stock has a market cap of $1.59 billion, a P/E ratio of 20.72 and a beta of 1.17. The company has a current ratio of 3.54, a quick ratio of 2.41 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.33. The stock’s fifty day simple moving average is $30.84 and its two-hundred day simple moving average is $37.38. Veeco Instruments Inc. has a 1-year low of $27.06 and a 1-year high of $49.25.

Veeco Instruments (NASDAQ:VECO) last posted its quarterly earnings results on Wednesday, November 6th. The semiconductor company reported $0.46 earnings per share for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $0.45 by $0.01. The company had revenue of $184.80 million during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $180.57 million. Veeco Instruments had a net margin of 11.34% and a return on equity of 10.92%. The firm’s revenue for the quarter was up 4.2% on a year-over-year basis. During the same quarter in the prior year, the business earned $0.41 earnings per share. Analysts expect that Veeco Instruments Inc. will post 1.2 EPS for the current year.

Veeco Instruments Profile

Veeco Instruments Inc, together with its subsidiaries, develops, manufactures, sells, and supports semiconductor and thin film process equipment primarily to make electronic devices in the United States, Europe, the Middle East, and Africa, China, Rest of the Asia-Pacific, and internationally. The company offers laser annealing, ion beam deposition and etch, metal organic chemical vapor deposition, single wafer wet processing and surface preparation, molecular beam epitaxy, advanced packaging lithography, atomic layer deposition, and other deposition systems.