Littelfuse, Inc. (NASDAQ:LFUS) Short Interest Up 13.9% in December

Littelfuse, Inc. (NASDAQ:LFUS - Get Free Report) was the recipient of a large increase in short interest in December. As of December 31st, there was short interest totalling 328,400 shares, an increase of 13.9% from the December 15th total of 288,300 shares. Approximately 1.3% of the shares of the company are short sold. Based on an average trading volume of 105,800 shares, the short-interest ratio is currently 3.1 days.

Insider Buying and Selling at Littelfuse

In other Littelfuse news, CAO Jeffrey G. Gorski sold 700 shares of Littelfuse stock in a transaction that occurred on Thursday, December 12th. The stock was sold at an average price of $249.02, for a total transaction of $174,314.00. Following the sale, the chief accounting officer now directly owns 3,105 shares of the company's stock, valued at approximately $773,207.10. The trade was a 18.40 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which can be accessed through this link. Insiders own 2.30% of the company's stock.

Institutional Inflows and Outflows

A number of hedge funds have recently added to or reduced their stakes in the business. Pathstone Holdings LLC grew its holdings in shares of Littelfuse by 0.6% in the 3rd quarter. Pathstone Holdings LLC now owns 6,522 shares of the technology company's stock valued at $1,730,000 after acquiring an additional 40 shares in the last quarter. Assetmark Inc. boosted its position in Littelfuse by 6.5% during the third quarter. Assetmark Inc. now owns 719 shares of the technology company's stock valued at $191,000 after purchasing an additional 44 shares during the last quarter. US Bancorp DE grew its stake in Littelfuse by 1.4% in the third quarter. US Bancorp DE now owns 3,436 shares of the technology company's stock valued at $911,000 after purchasing an additional 49 shares in the last quarter. Tributary Capital Management LLC increased its position in shares of Littelfuse by 1.4% during the 3rd quarter. Tributary Capital Management LLC now owns 3,940 shares of the technology company's stock worth $1,045,000 after purchasing an additional 55 shares during the last quarter. Finally, UMB Bank n.a. raised its stake in shares of Littelfuse by 70.2% during the 3rd quarter. UMB Bank n.a. now owns 143 shares of the technology company's stock worth $38,000 after purchasing an additional 59 shares in the last quarter. Institutional investors own 96.14% of the company's stock.

Littelfuse Stock Up 0.9 %

Shares of NASDAQ:LFUS traded up $2.03 during trading on Friday, hitting $233.17. 165,223 shares of the company's stock traded hands, compared to its average volume of 93,069. The company has a current ratio of 3.55, a quick ratio of 2.52 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.31. Littelfuse has a 52 week low of $222.91 and a 52 week high of $275.58. The company has a 50-day moving average price of $241.67 and a 200-day moving average price of $251.88. The company has a market cap of $5.79 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 29.97, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 1.93 and a beta of 1.26.

Littelfuse (NASDAQ:LFUS - Get Free Report) last issued its quarterly earnings data on Tuesday, October 29th. The technology company reported $2.71 EPS for the quarter, topping analysts' consensus estimates of $2.09 by $0.62. The business had revenue of $567.39 million for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $557.38 million. Littelfuse had a net margin of 8.88% and a return on equity of 8.49%. The firm's quarterly revenue was down 6.5% on a year-over-year basis. During the same period last year, the business posted $2.97 earnings per share. As a group, research analysts forecast that Littelfuse will post 8.47 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Littelfuse Dividend Announcement

The firm also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Thursday, December 5th. Investors of record on Thursday, November 21st were issued a dividend of $0.70 per share. This represents a $2.80 annualized dividend and a yield of 1.20%. The ex-dividend date was Thursday, November 21st. Littelfuse's payout ratio is 35.99%.

Analyst Ratings Changes

LFUS has been the topic of several recent analyst reports. StockNews.com upgraded shares of Littelfuse from a "hold" rating to a "buy" rating in a research note on Friday, October 18th. Oppenheimer upgraded Littelfuse from a "market perform" rating to an "outperform" rating and set a $310.00 target price for the company in a research report on Thursday, October 17th. Finally, Benchmark reaffirmed a "hold" rating on shares of Littelfuse in a research note on Wednesday, October 30th. Three equities research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, four have given a buy rating and one has issued a strong buy rating to the stock. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, the company has a consensus rating of "Moderate Buy" and a consensus price target of $285.00.

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.