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

Shares of Littelfuse, Inc. (NASDAQ:LFUS) have been assigned a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” from the six analysts that are presently covering the stock, Marketbeat.com reports. Three investment analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, two have assigned a buy rating and one has given a strong buy rating to the company. The average 1 year price objective among analysts that have covered the stock in the last year is $278.75.

Several research firms have recently commented on LFUS. Robert W. Baird lifted their target price on Littelfuse from $300.00 to $315.00 and gave the company an “outperform” rating in a research note on Thursday, August 29th. Stifel Nicolaus raised Littelfuse from a “hold” rating to a “buy” rating and lifted their target price for the company from $270.00 to $280.00 in a research note on Tuesday, August 13th. StockNews.com raised Littelfuse from a “hold” rating to a “buy” rating in a research note on Wednesday, September 25th. Finally, TD Cowen lifted their target price on Littelfuse from $250.00 to $260.00 and gave the company a “hold” rating in a research note on Thursday, August 1st.

Littelfuse Trading Up 1.6 %

Shares of LFUS opened at $258.39 on Friday. The stock has a fifty day moving average price of $257.18 and a two-hundred day moving average price of $251.93. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.32, a quick ratio of 2.42 and a current ratio of 3.50. Littelfuse has a 52-week low of $212.80 and a 52-week high of $275.58. The company has a market cap of $6.40 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 29.60, a PEG ratio of 2.65 and a beta of 1.27.

Littelfuse (NASDAQ:LFUS) last issued its quarterly earnings data on Tuesday, July 30th. The technology company reported $1.97 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $1.75 by $0.22. The firm had revenue of $558.49 million during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $540.35 million. Littelfuse had a return on equity of 8.91% and a net margin of 8.71%. The business’s revenue for the quarter was down 8.7% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same quarter in the previous year, the company posted $3.12 EPS. Analysts predict that Littelfuse will post 8.18 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Littelfuse Increases Dividend

The business also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Thursday, September 5th. Investors of record on Thursday, August 22nd were paid a dividend of $0.70 per share. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Thursday, August 22nd. This is a boost from Littelfuse’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.65. This represents a $2.80 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 1.08%. Littelfuse’s payout ratio is 32.07%.

Insider Buying and Selling

In other Littelfuse news, CEO David W. Heinzmann sold 300 shares of Littelfuse 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 transaction, the chief executive officer now directly owns 59,654 shares in the company, valued at approximately $16,295,683.18. The trade was a 0.00 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which is accessible through this link. In other Littelfuse news, CEO David W. Heinzmann sold 300 shares of Littelfuse 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 transaction, the chief executive officer now directly owns 59,654 shares in the company, valued at approximately $16,295,683.18. The trade was a 0.00 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which is accessible through this link. Also, SVP Matthew Cole sold 1,436 shares of Littelfuse stock in a transaction dated Thursday, September 12th. The stock was sold at an average price of $246.02, for a total value of $353,284.72. Following the transaction, the senior vice president now owns 5,522 shares in the company, valued at approximately $1,358,522.44. This represents a 0.00 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders sold a total of 16,328 shares of company stock valued at $4,437,986 over the last three months. Company insiders own 2.30% of the company’s stock.

Institutional Inflows and Outflows

Hedge funds and other institutional investors have recently added to or reduced their stakes in the business. Vanguard Group Inc. lifted its holdings in shares of Littelfuse by 0.6% in 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 in the last quarter. Victory Capital Management Inc. lifted its holdings in shares of Littelfuse by 13.2% in the second quarter. Victory Capital Management Inc. now owns 501,504 shares of the technology company’s stock valued at $128,179,000 after purchasing an additional 58,529 shares in the last quarter. Earnest Partners LLC lifted its holdings in shares of Littelfuse by 2.4% in the second 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 in the last quarter. Dimensional Fund Advisors LP lifted its holdings in shares of Littelfuse by 13.4% in the second quarter. Dimensional Fund Advisors LP now owns 419,586 shares of the technology company’s stock valued at $107,244,000 after purchasing an additional 49,588 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Van Lanschot Kempen Investment Management N.V. bought a new stake in shares of Littelfuse in the second quarter valued at about $100,662,000. 96.14% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors.

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.