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

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

LFUS has been the topic of a number of recent research reports. Benchmark reissued a “hold” rating on shares of Littelfuse in a research note on Wednesday, October 30th. Oppenheimer raised shares of Littelfuse from a “market perform” rating to an “outperform” rating and set a $310.00 target price on the stock in a report on Thursday, October 17th. Finally, StockNews.com upgraded shares of Littelfuse from a “hold” rating to a “buy” rating in a report on Friday, October 18th.

Insider Activity at Littelfuse

In other news, CAO Jeffrey G. Gorski sold 700 shares of Littelfuse stock in a transaction on Thursday, December 12th. The shares were sold at an average price of $249.02, for a total value of $174,314.00. Following the completion of the sale, the chief accounting officer now owns 3,105 shares in the company, valued at $773,207.10. The trade was a 18.40 % decrease in their position. The transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which is available through this link. 2.30% of the stock is owned by company insiders.

Institutional Investors Weigh In On Littelfuse

Several hedge funds and other institutional investors have recently bought and sold shares of the stock. Barrow Hanley Mewhinney & Strauss LLC acquired a new stake in shares of Littelfuse in the 2nd quarter valued at about $46,037,000. Verition Fund Management LLC acquired a new stake in Littelfuse in the third quarter valued at approximately $14,480,000. Jennison Associates LLC grew its stake in Littelfuse by 38.4% in the third quarter. Jennison Associates LLC now owns 181,141 shares of the technology company’s stock valued at $48,048,000 after acquiring an additional 50,304 shares during the period. Dimensional Fund Advisors LP raised its position in shares of Littelfuse by 13.4% during the second quarter. Dimensional Fund Advisors LP now owns 419,586 shares of the technology company’s stock worth $107,244,000 after purchasing an additional 49,588 shares during the period. Finally, American Century Companies Inc. raised its position in shares of Littelfuse by 43.5% during the second quarter. American Century Companies Inc. now owns 161,319 shares of the technology company’s stock worth $41,232,000 after purchasing an additional 48,890 shares during the period. 96.14% of the stock is owned by institutional investors.

Littelfuse Price Performance

Shares of NASDAQ:LFUS opened at $235.12 on Monday. The firm has a 50 day simple moving average of $244.01 and a 200 day simple moving average of $252.66. The company has a market cap of $5.83 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 30.22, a PEG ratio of 2.42 and a beta of 1.26. Littelfuse has a one year low of $222.91 and a one year high of $275.58. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.31, a current ratio of 3.55 and a quick ratio of 2.52.

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

Littelfuse Dividend Announcement

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

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.