Littelfuse, Inc. (NASDAQ:LFUS) Given Average Recommendation of "Moderate Buy" by Brokerages

Shares of Littelfuse, Inc. (NASDAQ:LFUS - Get Free Report) have received a consensus recommendation of "Moderate Buy" from the seven analysts that are presently covering the firm, Marketbeat.com reports. Three equities research analysts have rated the stock with a hold recommendation, three have issued a buy recommendation and one has given a strong buy recommendation to the company. The average 1-year price target among analysts that have issued ratings on the stock in the last year is $285.00.

Several analysts recently commented on the company. Benchmark reaffirmed a "hold" rating on shares of Littelfuse in a research note on Wednesday, October 30th. TD Cowen boosted their price objective on Littelfuse from $250.00 to $260.00 and gave the company a "hold" rating in a research report on Thursday, August 1st. Stifel Nicolaus raised shares of Littelfuse from a "hold" rating to a "buy" rating and lifted their price target for the company from $270.00 to $280.00 in a research note on Tuesday, August 13th. Robert W. Baird upped their target price on shares of Littelfuse from $300.00 to $315.00 and gave the stock an "outperform" rating in a research note on Thursday, August 29th. Finally, Oppenheimer raised Littelfuse from a "market perform" rating to an "outperform" rating and set a $310.00 price target on the stock in a research note on Thursday, October 17th.

Littelfuse Price Performance

Shares of Littelfuse stock traded down $8.21 during midday trading on Friday, hitting $241.09. 128,600 shares of the company were exchanged, compared to its average volume of 104,126. Littelfuse has a 52 week low of $222.91 and a 52 week 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. The firm has a 50 day simple moving average of $255.32 and a 200-day simple moving average of $256.49. The firm has a market cap of $5.98 billion, a P/E ratio of 30.99, a PEG ratio of 2.37 and a beta of 1.28.

Littelfuse (NASDAQ:LFUS - Get Free Report) last posted 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. Littelfuse had a net margin of 8.88% and a return on equity of 8.49%. The firm had revenue of $567.39 million during the quarter, compared to analysts' expectations of $557.38 million. During the same quarter last year, the company posted $2.97 EPS. The company's quarterly revenue was down 6.5% compared to the same quarter last year. Research analysts forecast that Littelfuse will post 8.47 earnings per share for the current year.

Littelfuse Announces Dividend

The company also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Thursday, December 5th. Stockholders of record on Thursday, November 21st will be issued a $0.70 dividend. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Thursday, November 21st. This represents a $2.80 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 1.16%. Littelfuse's payout ratio is 35.99%.

Insider Activity at Littelfuse

In other Littelfuse news, CEO David W. Heinzmann sold 8,715 shares of the company's stock in a transaction on Friday, August 23rd. The shares were sold at an average price of $274.40, for a total value of $2,391,396.00. Following the transaction, the chief executive officer now directly owns 59,654 shares in the company, valued at $16,369,057.60. The trade was a 12.75 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available at this hyperlink. Also, SVP Matthew Cole sold 1,436 shares of the firm's stock in a transaction dated Thursday, September 12th. The stock was sold at an average price of $246.02, for a total transaction of $353,284.72. Following the sale, the senior vice president now owns 5,522 shares of the company's stock, valued at approximately $1,358,522.44. This represents a 20.64 % decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. In the last ninety days, insiders sold 12,242 shares of company stock worth $3,318,974. Insiders own 2.30% of the company's stock.

Institutional Trading of Littelfuse

Several institutional investors have recently added to or reduced their stakes in LFUS. SG Americas Securities LLC boosted its stake in shares of Littelfuse by 399.7% in the second quarter. SG Americas Securities LLC now owns 4,712 shares of the technology company's stock valued at $1,204,000 after buying an additional 3,769 shares during the period. Vanguard Group Inc. grew its stake in Littelfuse by 0.6% during the first quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 2,679,767 shares of the technology company's stock worth $649,442,000 after buying an additional 17,119 shares in the last quarter. Sei Investments Co. increased its holdings in Littelfuse by 8.9% in the 1st quarter. Sei Investments Co. now owns 40,897 shares of the technology company's stock valued at $9,910,000 after buying an additional 3,343 shares during the period. Edgestream Partners L.P. acquired a new position in shares of Littelfuse in the 1st quarter valued at approximately $2,454,000. Finally, Quadrature Capital Ltd lifted its holdings in shares of Littelfuse by 66.7% during the 1st quarter. Quadrature Capital Ltd now owns 28,113 shares of the technology company's stock worth $6,817,000 after acquiring an additional 11,247 shares during the period. 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.