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

Shares of Littelfuse, Inc. (NASDAQ:LFUS - Get Free Report) have earned an average recommendation of "Moderate Buy" from the seven analysts that are covering the stock, MarketBeat reports. Three research analysts have rated the stock with a hold recommendation, three have assigned a buy recommendation and one has assigned a strong buy recommendation to the company. The average 1 year price target among brokerages that have covered the stock in the last year is $280.00.

LFUS has been the topic of several research analyst reports. Robert W. Baird dropped their price target on Littelfuse from $300.00 to $290.00 and set an "outperform" rating on the stock in a research note on Thursday, January 30th. Benchmark reiterated a "hold" rating on shares of Littelfuse in a research report on Wednesday, January 29th. Finally, StockNews.com raised shares of Littelfuse from a "hold" rating to a "buy" rating in a research report on Wednesday, March 19th.

Littelfuse Stock Performance

Shares of Littelfuse stock traded up $7.38 during midday trading on Friday, hitting $217.17. The company had a trading volume of 16,575 shares, compared to its average volume of 126,741. The company has a fifty day simple moving average of $230.69 and a 200 day simple moving average of $242.81. The stock has a market cap of $5.37 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 48.19, a PEG ratio of 2.24 and a beta of 1.27. The company has a quick ratio of 2.62, a current ratio of 3.61 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.32. Littelfuse has a 12-month low of $201.97 and a 12-month high of $275.58.

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Littelfuse (NASDAQ:LFUS - Get Free Report) last issued its quarterly earnings results on Tuesday, January 28th. The technology company reported $2.04 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, meeting analysts' consensus estimates 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 business posted $2.02 EPS. As a group, analysts predict that Littelfuse will post 9.49 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Littelfuse Announces Dividend

The business also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Thursday, March 6th. Shareholders of record on Thursday, February 20th were issued a $0.70 dividend. This represents a $2.80 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 1.29%. The ex-dividend date was Thursday, February 20th. Littelfuse's payout ratio is presently 62.22%.

Institutional Investors Weigh In On Littelfuse

A number of hedge funds and other institutional investors have recently made changes to their positions in the company. Forum Financial Management LP purchased a new stake in Littelfuse during the fourth quarter worth $222,000. Voloridge Investment Management LLC purchased a new stake in shares of Littelfuse during the 4th quarter worth about $4,176,000. Westwood Holdings Group Inc. grew its position in shares of Littelfuse by 2.9% during the 4th quarter. Westwood Holdings Group Inc. now owns 347,364 shares of the technology company's stock valued at $81,856,000 after acquiring an additional 9,705 shares during the period. Squarepoint Ops LLC increased its stake in shares of Littelfuse by 151.1% in the 4th quarter. Squarepoint Ops LLC now owns 21,974 shares of the technology company's stock valued at $5,178,000 after purchasing an additional 13,224 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Snowden Capital Advisors LLC raised its holdings in Littelfuse by 0.5% in the 4th quarter. Snowden Capital Advisors LLC now owns 16,413 shares of the technology company's stock worth $3,868,000 after purchasing an additional 86 shares during the period. Institutional investors and hedge funds 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.