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

Shares of Littelfuse, Inc. (NASDAQ:LFUS) have earned a consensus recommendation of “Moderate Buy” from the five research firms that are covering the company, MarketBeat reports. Three investment analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, one has assigned a buy rating and one has issued a strong buy rating on the company. The average 1 year price objective among brokerages that have covered the stock in the last year is $270.00.

Several research firms recently commented on LFUS. Baird R W upgraded Littelfuse from a “hold” rating to a “strong-buy” rating in a research report on Friday, May 17th. Robert W. Baird raised shares of Littelfuse from a “neutral” rating to an “outperform” rating and boosted their target price for the stock from $270.00 to $300.00 in a research note on Friday, May 17th. Jefferies Financial Group began coverage on Littelfuse in a research note on Tuesday, April 9th. They set a “hold” rating and a $260.00 price target on the stock. Benchmark restated a “hold” rating on shares of Littelfuse in a report on Thursday, May 2nd. Finally, Stifel Nicolaus raised their target price on Littelfuse from $240.00 to $250.00 and gave the stock a “hold” rating in a report on Monday, July 15th.

Insider Activity at Littelfuse

In related news, CEO David W. Heinzmann sold 300 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction on Wednesday, July 17th. The shares were sold at an average price of $273.17, for a total transaction of $81,951.00. Following the sale, the chief executive officer now directly owns 59,654 shares in the company, valued at $16,295,683.18. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which is available at this hyperlink. In related news, CEO David W. Heinzmann sold 300 shares of the stock in a transaction dated Wednesday, July 17th. The stock was sold at an average price of $273.17, for a total transaction of $81,951.00. Following the completion of the transaction, the chief executive officer now directly owns 59,654 shares in the company, valued at $16,295,683.18. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which can be accessed through this link. Also, SVP Deepak Nayar sold 1,305 shares of Littelfuse stock in a transaction that occurred on Monday, May 6th. The shares were sold at an average price of $250.25, for a total value of $326,576.25. Following the completion of the sale, the senior vice president now directly owns 4,630 shares in the company, valued at approximately $1,158,657.50. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. In the last three months, insiders sold 9,938 shares of company stock worth $2,545,503. 2.30% of the stock is owned by company insiders.

Institutional Inflows and Outflows

Several large investors have recently added to or reduced their stakes in LFUS. Vanguard Group Inc. boosted its position in Littelfuse by 0.6% during the first quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 2,679,767 shares of the technology company’s stock valued at $649,442,000 after purchasing an additional 17,119 shares during the last quarter. Norges Bank acquired a new position in Littelfuse during the fourth quarter worth $150,004,000. Victory Capital Management Inc. raised its position in Littelfuse by 4.8% during the fourth quarter. Victory Capital Management Inc. now owns 421,392 shares of the technology company’s stock worth $112,748,000 after acquiring an additional 19,435 shares in the last quarter. Ariel Investments LLC lifted its stake in Littelfuse by 1.8% in the first quarter. Ariel Investments LLC now owns 347,223 shares of the technology company’s stock valued at $84,149,000 after acquiring an additional 6,030 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Dimensional Fund Advisors LP grew its position in shares of Littelfuse by 3.2% in the 4th quarter. Dimensional Fund Advisors LP now owns 346,174 shares of the technology company’s stock valued at $92,627,000 after acquiring an additional 10,770 shares during the period. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 96.14% of the company’s stock.

Littelfuse Trading Down 2.8 %

Littelfuse stock opened at $259.53 on Monday. Littelfuse has a 12 month low of $212.80 and a 12 month high of $309.21. The stock has a market cap of $6.43 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 29.73, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 2.65 and a beta of 1.29. The company has a quick ratio of 2.44, a current ratio of 3.57 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.32. The business has a 50 day moving average price of $257.46 and a two-hundred day moving average price of $245.80.

Littelfuse (NASDAQ:LFUS) last posted its quarterly earnings results on Tuesday, April 30th. The technology company reported $1.76 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $1.75 by $0.01. The firm had revenue of $535.39 million during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $519.08 million. Littelfuse had a net margin of 9.58% and a return on equity of 10.21%. The company’s quarterly revenue was down 12.2% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same quarter in the prior year, the business posted $3.64 earnings per share. As a group, equities analysts forecast that Littelfuse will post 8.45 EPS for the current year.

Littelfuse Dividend Announcement

The firm also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Thursday, June 6th. Stockholders of record on Thursday, May 23rd were issued a dividend of $0.65 per share. This represents a $2.60 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 1.00%. The ex-dividend date was Wednesday, May 22nd. Littelfuse’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is presently 29.78%.

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.