Littelfuse, Inc. (NASDAQ:LFUS) Given Average Recommendation of “Moderate Buy” by Analysts

Shares of Littelfuse, Inc. (NASDAQ:LFUS) have been assigned an average rating of “Moderate Buy” from the seven ratings firms that are currently covering the stock, MarketBeat.com reports. Three research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, three have given a buy rating and one has issued a strong buy rating on the company. The average 12-month price objective among brokerages that have issued a report on the stock in the last year is $285.00.

Several research analysts recently commented on LFUS shares. Oppenheimer raised shares of Littelfuse from a “market perform” rating to an “outperform” rating and set a $310.00 price objective for the company in a report on Thursday, October 17th. Benchmark reiterated a “hold” rating on shares of Littelfuse in a research report on Wednesday, October 30th. Robert W. Baird boosted their price objective on Littelfuse from $300.00 to $315.00 and gave the company an “outperform” rating in a research note on Thursday, August 29th. Finally, StockNews.com upgraded Littelfuse from a “hold” rating to a “buy” rating in a research note on Friday, October 18th.

Littelfuse Stock Down 3.3 %

Shares of NASDAQ LFUS opened at $235.60 on Thursday. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.31, a current ratio of 3.55 and a quick ratio of 2.52. The stock has a market capitalization of $5.85 billion, a PE ratio of 30.28, a P/E/G ratio of 2.48 and a beta of 1.26. Littelfuse has a one year low of $222.91 and a one year high of $275.58. The business’s fifty day moving average price is $250.22 and its 200-day moving average price is $254.99.

Littelfuse (NASDAQ:LFUS) last released its quarterly earnings data on Tuesday, October 29th. The technology company reported $2.71 EPS for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $2.09 by $0.62. The business had revenue of $567.39 million for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $557.38 million. Littelfuse had a net margin of 8.88% and a return on equity of 8.49%. The company’s revenue was down 6.5% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same period in the prior year, the firm earned $2.97 earnings per share. On average, equities research analysts anticipate that Littelfuse will post 8.47 EPS for the current year.

Littelfuse Dividend Announcement

The firm also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Thursday, December 5th. Investors of record on Thursday, November 21st were paid a dividend of $0.70 per share. This represents a $2.80 annualized dividend and a yield of 1.19%. The ex-dividend date was Thursday, November 21st. Littelfuse’s dividend payout ratio is 35.99%.

Insider Buying and Selling

In other Littelfuse news, CAO Jeffrey G. Gorski sold 700 shares of Littelfuse stock in a transaction that occurred on Thursday, December 12th. The shares were sold at an average price of $249.02, for a total transaction 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 $773,207.10. The trade was a 18.40 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which is available through this hyperlink. 2.30% of the stock is owned by company insiders.

Institutional Trading of Littelfuse

Several institutional investors and hedge funds have recently made changes to their positions in the stock. State Street Corp grew its position in Littelfuse by 3.4% in the third quarter. State Street Corp now owns 747,082 shares of the technology company’s stock worth $198,164,000 after acquiring an additional 24,571 shares in the last quarter. Victory Capital Management Inc. boosted its holdings in shares of Littelfuse by 2.0% in the 3rd quarter. Victory Capital Management Inc. now owns 511,623 shares of the technology company’s stock worth $135,708,000 after purchasing an additional 10,119 shares in the last quarter. Earnest Partners LLC increased its position in shares of Littelfuse by 2.4% during the 2nd quarter. Earnest Partners LLC now owns 444,654 shares of the technology company’s stock valued at $113,649,000 after purchasing an additional 10,406 shares during the last quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC raised its holdings in shares of Littelfuse by 0.4% during the 3rd quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC now owns 431,956 shares of the technology company’s stock valued at $114,607,000 after buying an additional 1,525 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Dimensional Fund Advisors LP lifted its position in Littelfuse by 13.4% in the 2nd quarter. Dimensional Fund Advisors LP now owns 419,586 shares of the technology company’s stock worth $107,244,000 after buying an additional 49,588 shares during the last quarter. 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.