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

StockNews.com upgraded shares of Littelfuse (NASDAQ:LFUS) from a hold rating to a buy rating in a research note issued to investors on Wednesday.

Several other equities research analysts have also commented on the stock. Robert W. Baird reduced their price target on shares of Littelfuse from $300.00 to $290.00 and set an “outperform” rating for the company in a research report on Thursday, January 30th. Benchmark reiterated a “hold” rating on shares of Littelfuse in a research note on Wednesday, January 29th. Three investment analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, four have assigned a buy rating and one has assigned a strong buy rating to the company’s stock. According to MarketBeat.com, Littelfuse has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average price target of $280.00.

Littelfuse Price Performance

Shares of NASDAQ:LFUS opened at $240.19 on Wednesday. Littelfuse has a fifty-two week low of $222.73 and a fifty-two week high of $275.58. The business has a 50-day simple moving average of $237.85 and a two-hundred day simple moving average of $248.70. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.32, a quick ratio of 2.62 and a current ratio of 3.61. The firm has a market cap of $5.96 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 53.38, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 2.24 and a beta of 1.26.

Littelfuse (NASDAQ:LFUS) last released its quarterly earnings results on Tuesday, January 28th. The technology company reported $2.04 EPS for the quarter, meeting the consensus estimate 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 posted $2.02 earnings per share. On average, analysts expect that Littelfuse will post 9.49 earnings per share for the current year.

Littelfuse Announces Dividend

The firm also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Thursday, March 6th. Shareholders of record on Thursday, February 20th will be paid a $0.70 dividend. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Thursday, February 20th. This represents a $2.80 annualized dividend and a yield of 1.17%. Littelfuse’s payout ratio is 62.22%.

Insiders Place Their Bets

In other news, CAO Jeffrey G. Gorski sold 700 shares of the stock in a transaction that occurred on Thursday, December 12th. The stock was sold at an average price of $249.02, for a total transaction of $174,314.00. Following the completion of the transaction, the chief accounting officer now directly owns 3,105 shares in the company, valued at approximately $773,207.10. This represents a 18.40 % decrease in their position. The transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which can be accessed through the SEC website. 2.30% of the stock is currently owned by corporate insiders.

Institutional Inflows and Outflows

A number of hedge funds and other institutional investors have recently modified their holdings of LFUS. Norges Bank bought a new position in shares of Littelfuse during the 4th quarter valued at approximately $131,579,000. Raymond James Financial Inc. purchased a new stake in Littelfuse during the 4th quarter valued at $32,865,000. BLI Banque de Luxembourg Investments purchased a new stake in Littelfuse during the 4th quarter valued at $16,250,000. Ameriprise Financial Inc. raised its holdings in Littelfuse by 119.4% during the 4th quarter. Ameriprise Financial Inc. now owns 116,940 shares of the technology company’s stock valued at $27,557,000 after buying an additional 63,632 shares during the period. Finally, T. Rowe Price Investment Management Inc. increased its stake in Littelfuse by 7.9% in the fourth quarter. T. Rowe Price Investment Management Inc. now owns 763,396 shares of the technology company’s stock worth $179,895,000 after purchasing an additional 55,835 shares during the period. 96.14% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors.

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.