Veeco Instruments (NASDAQ:VECO) Shares Gap Down After Analyst Downgrade

Veeco Instruments Inc. (NASDAQ:VECO) gapped down prior to trading on Tuesday after Zacks Research downgraded the stock from a strong-buy rating to a hold rating. The stock had previously closed at $54.42, but opened at $50.92. Veeco Instruments shares last traded at $50.3420, with a volume of 110,524 shares trading hands.

A number of other equities analysts have also recently issued reports on VECO. Citigroup increased their price objective on shares of Veeco Instruments from $40.00 to $60.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a research note on Wednesday, May 6th. Weiss Ratings raised shares of Veeco Instruments from a “sell (d)” rating to a “sell (d+)” rating in a research note on Tuesday, June 30th. Barclays increased their price target on shares of Veeco Instruments from $30.00 to $55.00 and gave the stock an “equal weight” rating in a research report on Tuesday, May 19th. Finally, Wall Street Zen upgraded shares of Veeco Instruments to a “hold” rating in a research note on Saturday, June 6th. Two investment analysts have rated the stock with a Buy rating, four have given a Hold rating and one has given a Sell rating to the company. According to data from MarketBeat.com, the company has an average rating of “Hold” and an average price target of $40.60.

Insiders Place Their Bets

In other Veeco Instruments news, Director Gordon Hunter sold 16,974 shares of Veeco Instruments stock in a transaction on Tuesday, June 9th. The stock was sold at an average price of $68.80, for a total value of $1,167,811.20. Following the completion of the transaction, the director owned 11,236 shares in the company, valued at approximately $773,036.80. The trade was a 60.17% decrease in their position. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which can be accessed through this hyperlink. Also, SVP Adrian Devasahayam sold 10,000 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction on Tuesday, June 9th. The stock was sold at an average price of $65.00, for a total value of $650,000.00. Following the completion of the transaction, the senior vice president directly owned 85,115 shares in the company, valued at approximately $5,532,475. This represents a 10.51% decrease in their position. Additional details regarding this sale are available in the official SEC disclosure. Insiders have sold 339,055 shares of company stock worth $20,705,270 in the last quarter. 2.70% of the stock is owned by corporate insiders.

Institutional Inflows and Outflows

Several institutional investors and hedge funds have recently added to or reduced their stakes in VECO. Louisiana State Employees Retirement System bought a new stake in shares of Veeco Instruments during the first quarter valued at approximately $904,000. Fisher Asset Management LLC increased its holdings in Veeco Instruments by 37.4% in the fourth quarter. Fisher Asset Management LLC now owns 1,820,357 shares of the semiconductor company’s stock valued at $52,026,000 after purchasing an additional 495,767 shares during the last quarter. New York Life Investment Management LLC acquired a new stake in shares of Veeco Instruments in the 4th quarter valued at approximately $1,808,000. Nano Cap New Millennium Growth Fund L P acquired a new stake in Veeco Instruments in the fourth quarter worth $1,572,000. Finally, UBS Group AG raised its stake in Veeco Instruments by 11.0% during the 4th quarter. UBS Group AG now owns 292,360 shares of the semiconductor company’s stock worth $8,356,000 after buying an additional 28,967 shares during the period. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 98.46% of the company’s stock.

Veeco Instruments Stock Performance

The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.26, a current ratio of 4.23 and a quick ratio of 2.86. The stock has a 50-day moving average price of $63.17 and a 200 day moving average price of $44.06. The company has a market cap of $3.32 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 143.35 and a beta of 1.34.

Veeco Instruments (NASDAQ:VECO) last announced its earnings results on Tuesday, May 5th. The semiconductor company reported $0.14 earnings per share for the quarter, missing analysts’ consensus estimates of $0.20 by ($0.06). The company had revenue of $158.34 million during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $160.07 million. Veeco Instruments had a return on equity of 3.49% and a net margin of 3.53%.Veeco Instruments’s revenue for the quarter was down 5.4% on a year-over-year basis. During the same period in the previous year, the company posted $0.37 earnings per share. Veeco Instruments has set its Q2 2026 guidance at 0.200-0.320 EPS and its FY 2026 guidance at 1.500-1.850 EPS. As a group, analysts anticipate that Veeco Instruments Inc. will post 1.1 EPS for the current fiscal year.

About Veeco Instruments

Veeco Instruments Inc (NASDAQ: VECO) is a leading supplier of process equipment for the semiconductor, data storage, wireless communications, power electronics and advanced packaging industries. The company designs, manufactures and services precision tools used to grow, deposit and etch thin films on substrates, enabling the fabrication of chips, light-emitting diodes (LEDs), micro-electromechanical systems (MEMS) and high-density storage devices. Veeco’s platforms are deployed across fabrication facilities worldwide, where they support key processes in materials science and device manufacturing.

Veeco’s product portfolio spans molecular beam epitaxy (MBE), metal organic chemical vapor deposition (MOCVD), atomic layer deposition (ALD), ion beam etch and deposition, and high-precision wet and dry etch systems.