Littelfuse, Inc. (NASDAQ:LFUS) Receives Consensus Rating of “Moderate Buy” from Brokerages

Littelfuse, Inc. (NASDAQ:LFUS) has been assigned an average rating of “Moderate Buy” from the seven research firms that are currently covering the stock, MarketBeat reports. Three research analysts have rated the stock with a hold recommendation, three have assigned a buy recommendation and one has given a strong buy recommendation to the company. The average 1 year target price among analysts that have issued a report on the stock in the last year is $280.00.

A number of brokerages recently commented on LFUS. Robert W. Baird cut their target price on Littelfuse from $300.00 to $290.00 and set an “outperform” rating for the company in a research note on Thursday, January 30th. Oppenheimer upgraded shares of Littelfuse from a “market perform” rating to an “outperform” rating and set a $310.00 price objective for the company in a research note on Thursday, October 17th. StockNews.com lowered shares of Littelfuse from a “buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a research report on Tuesday. Finally, Benchmark reissued a “hold” rating on shares of Littelfuse in a research report on Wednesday, January 29th.

Littelfuse Price Performance

NASDAQ:LFUS opened at $231.05 on Friday. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.32, a current ratio of 3.61 and a quick ratio of 2.62. Littelfuse has a one year low of $222.73 and a one year high of $275.58. The company has a fifty day moving average price of $238.89 and a 200 day moving average price of $249.61. The stock has a market cap of $5.73 billion, a P/E ratio of 51.34, a PEG ratio of 2.09 and a beta of 1.26.

Littelfuse (NASDAQ:LFUS) last announced its quarterly earnings data on Tuesday, January 28th. The technology company reported $2.04 EPS for the quarter, meeting analysts’ consensus estimates of $2.04. Littelfuse had a net margin of 5.16% and a return on equity of 8.55%. During the same quarter last year, the company earned $2.02 earnings per share. Analysts anticipate that Littelfuse will post 9.49 earnings per share for the current year.

Littelfuse Announces Dividend

The company also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Thursday, March 6th. Shareholders of record on Thursday, February 20th will be paid a dividend of $0.70 per share. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Thursday, February 20th. This represents a $2.80 annualized dividend and a yield of 1.21%. Littelfuse’s dividend payout ratio is 62.22%.

Insider Activity

In other news, CAO Jeffrey G. Gorski sold 700 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction on Thursday, December 12th. The stock was sold at an average price of $249.02, for a total value of $174,314.00. Following the completion of the sale, the chief accounting officer now directly owns 3,105 shares in the company, valued at approximately $773,207.10. This trade represents a 18.40 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which is available through this link. 2.30% of the stock is currently owned by corporate insiders.

Institutional Investors Weigh In On Littelfuse

A number of hedge funds have recently added to or reduced their stakes in the stock. Jane Street Group LLC lifted its position in shares of Littelfuse by 126.9% during the third quarter. Jane Street Group LLC now owns 11,418 shares of the technology company’s stock worth $3,029,000 after purchasing an additional 6,386 shares in the last quarter. Chesapeake Capital Corp IL bought a new position in Littelfuse in the 3rd quarter worth approximately $570,000. Thrivent Financial for Lutherans lifted its holdings in Littelfuse by 1.4% during the 3rd quarter. Thrivent Financial for Lutherans now owns 278,158 shares of the technology company’s stock worth $73,781,000 after buying an additional 3,831 shares in the last quarter. New York State Common Retirement Fund boosted its position in Littelfuse by 3.9% in the 3rd quarter. New York State Common Retirement Fund now owns 141,157 shares of the technology company’s stock valued at $37,442,000 after buying an additional 5,344 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Eastern Bank acquired a new stake in shares of Littelfuse in the 3rd quarter valued at $530,000. Institutional investors own 96.14% of the company’s stock.

Littelfuse Company Profile

Littelfuse, Inc designs, manufactures, and sells electronic components, modules, and subassemblies in the Americas, Asia-Pacific, and Europe. The company operates through Electronic, Transportation, and Industrial segments. The Electronics segment offers fuses and fuse accessories, positive temperature coefficient resettable fuses, electromechanical switches and interconnect solutions, polymer electrostatic discharge suppressors, varistors, reed switch based magnetic sensing products, and gas discharge tubes; and discrete transient voltage suppressor (TVS) diodes, TVS diode arrays, protection and switching thyristors, metal-oxide-semiconductor field-effect transistors and diodes, and insulated gate bipolar transistors.