Littelfuse (NASDAQ:LFUS) Raised to “Buy” at StockNews.com

StockNews.com upgraded shares of Littelfuse (NASDAQ:LFUS) from a hold rating to a buy rating in a research report sent to investors on Monday morning.

LFUS has been the subject of several other research reports. Stifel Nicolaus upgraded shares of Littelfuse from a hold rating to a buy rating and upped their price target for the stock from $270.00 to $280.00 in a research report on Tuesday, August 13th. TD Cowen upped their price target on shares of Littelfuse from $250.00 to $260.00 and gave the stock a hold rating in a research report on Thursday, August 1st. Finally, Robert W. Baird upped their price target on shares of Littelfuse from $300.00 to $315.00 and gave the stock an outperform rating in a research report on Thursday, August 29th. Three equities research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, three have given a buy rating and one has given a strong buy rating to the stock. According to MarketBeat.com, the company currently has an average rating of Moderate Buy and an average target price of $278.75.

Littelfuse Trading Down 0.5 %

LFUS stock opened at $252.96 on Monday. The company’s 50-day simple moving average is $258.00 and its 200-day simple moving average is $249.92. The company has a quick ratio of 2.42, a current ratio of 3.50 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.32. Littelfuse has a 52-week low of $212.80 and a 52-week high of $275.58. The firm has a market cap of $6.27 billion, a P/E ratio of 28.98, a PEG ratio of 2.51 and a beta of 1.28.

Littelfuse (NASDAQ:LFUS) last posted its earnings results on Tuesday, July 30th. The technology company reported $1.97 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $1.75 by $0.22. Littelfuse had a net margin of 8.71% and a return on equity of 8.91%. The business had revenue of $558.49 million for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $540.35 million. During the same period in the prior year, the company posted $3.12 EPS. The company’s revenue for the quarter was down 8.7% on a year-over-year basis. As a group, equities analysts forecast that Littelfuse will post 8.18 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Littelfuse Increases Dividend

The firm also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Thursday, September 5th. Shareholders of record on Thursday, August 22nd were issued a $0.70 dividend. This is an increase from Littelfuse’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.65. The ex-dividend date was Thursday, August 22nd. This represents a $2.80 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 1.11%. Littelfuse’s dividend payout ratio is presently 32.07%.

Insider Buying and Selling at Littelfuse

In other Littelfuse news, CEO David W. Heinzmann sold 8,715 shares of the stock in a transaction dated Friday, August 23rd. The shares were sold at an average price of $274.40, for a total value of $2,391,396.00. Following the completion of the sale, the chief executive officer now owns 59,654 shares in the company, valued at approximately $16,369,057.60. The transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which can be accessed through this hyperlink. In other news, CEO David W. Heinzmann sold 2,091 shares of the stock in a transaction that occurred on Monday, August 26th. The shares were sold at an average price of $274.65, for a total value of $574,293.15. Following the completion of the sale, the chief executive officer now owns 59,654 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $16,383,971.10. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which is accessible through this link. Also, CEO David W. Heinzmann sold 8,715 shares of the stock in a transaction that occurred on Friday, August 23rd. The shares were sold at an average price of $274.40, for a total transaction of $2,391,396.00. Following the completion of the sale, the chief executive officer now directly owns 59,654 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $16,369,057.60. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. In the last quarter, insiders sold 16,328 shares of company stock worth $4,437,986. Insiders own 2.30% of the company’s stock.

Institutional Trading of Littelfuse

Hedge funds have recently made changes to their positions in the company. SG Americas Securities LLC grew its stake in shares of Littelfuse by 399.7% in the 2nd quarter. SG Americas Securities LLC now owns 4,712 shares of the technology company’s stock valued at $1,204,000 after buying an additional 3,769 shares during the period. Entropy Technologies LP grew its stake in shares of Littelfuse by 407.9% in the 1st quarter. Entropy Technologies LP now owns 6,186 shares of the technology company’s stock valued at $1,499,000 after buying an additional 4,968 shares during the period. Lord Abbett & CO. LLC grew its stake in shares of Littelfuse by 88.8% in the 1st quarter. Lord Abbett & CO. LLC now owns 166,195 shares of the technology company’s stock valued at $40,278,000 after buying an additional 78,153 shares during the period. Vanguard Group Inc. grew its stake in shares of Littelfuse by 0.6% in the 1st quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 2,679,767 shares of the technology company’s stock valued at $649,442,000 after buying an additional 17,119 shares during the period. Finally, Nordea Investment Management AB boosted its position in shares of Littelfuse by 27.3% during the 1st quarter. Nordea Investment Management AB now owns 215,944 shares of the technology company’s stock worth $52,334,000 after purchasing an additional 46,361 shares during the period. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 96.14% of the company’s stock.

About Littelfuse

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.