StockNews.com Downgrades Veeco Instruments (NASDAQ:VECO) to Sell

StockNews.com lowered shares of Veeco Instruments (NASDAQ:VECO) from a hold rating to a sell rating in a research report released on Wednesday morning.

Other analysts also recently issued research reports about the company. Needham & Company LLC restated a buy rating and issued a $55.00 target price on shares of Veeco Instruments in a research report on Wednesday, August 7th. Northland Securities reduced their target price on Veeco Instruments from $53.00 to $47.00 and set an outperform rating on the stock in a research note on Wednesday, August 7th. Citigroup cut Veeco Instruments from a buy rating to a neutral rating and boosted their target price for the company from $45.00 to $50.00 in a research note on Monday, July 15th. Benchmark reissued a buy rating and set a $42.00 target price on shares of Veeco Instruments in a research note on Wednesday, August 7th. Finally, Oppenheimer boosted their target price on Veeco Instruments from $45.00 to $55.00 and gave the company an outperform rating in a research note on Thursday, June 27th. One research analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, three have given a hold rating and four have issued a buy rating to the company. According to MarketBeat, Veeco Instruments currently has a consensus rating of Hold and a consensus target price of $45.57.

Veeco Instruments Stock Up 1.6 %

Shares of NASDAQ VECO opened at $32.82 on Wednesday. Veeco Instruments has a one year low of $23.63 and a one year high of $49.25. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.35, a current ratio of 3.52 and a quick ratio of 2.32. The business’s fifty day moving average price is $34.28 and its 200-day moving average price is $38.22. The stock has a market capitalization of $1.86 billion, a PE ratio of -72.93 and a beta of 1.16.

Veeco Instruments (NASDAQ:VECO) last issued its quarterly earnings results on Tuesday, August 6th. The semiconductor company reported $0.42 EPS for the quarter, missing analysts’ consensus estimates of $0.43 by ($0.01). Veeco Instruments had a net margin of 11.83% and a return on equity of 12.03%. The firm had revenue of $175.88 million for the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $176.03 million. During the same period in the prior year, the company earned $0.21 EPS. The firm’s quarterly revenue was up 8.8% on a year-over-year basis. On average, equities research analysts anticipate that Veeco Instruments will post 1.2 EPS for the current year.

Insider Activity at Veeco Instruments

In related news, CFO John P. Kiernan sold 2,500 shares of Veeco Instruments stock in a transaction that occurred on Tuesday, September 10th. The stock was sold at an average price of $29.04, for a total transaction of $72,600.00. Following the sale, the chief financial officer now directly owns 85,142 shares in the company, valued at $2,472,523.68. The trade was a 0.00 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which is available through this hyperlink. 2.40% of the stock is currently owned by corporate insiders.

Institutional Investors Weigh In On Veeco Instruments

Hedge funds have recently made changes to their positions in the company. Driehaus Capital Management LLC boosted its holdings in Veeco Instruments by 119.3% in the second quarter. Driehaus Capital Management LLC now owns 1,458,288 shares of the semiconductor company’s stock worth $68,117,000 after acquiring an additional 793,429 shares in the last quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. boosted its holdings in Veeco Instruments by 5.8% in the first quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 7,131,073 shares of the semiconductor company’s stock worth $250,800,000 after acquiring an additional 391,346 shares in the last quarter. Blue Grotto Capital LLC bought a new stake in Veeco Instruments in the fourth quarter worth $11,476,000. Mesirow Institutional Investment Management Inc. bought a new stake in Veeco Instruments in the second quarter worth $8,857,000. Finally, The Manufacturers Life Insurance Company boosted its holdings in Veeco Instruments by 8.6% in the fourth quarter. The Manufacturers Life Insurance Company now owns 1,705,572 shares of the semiconductor company’s stock worth $52,924,000 after acquiring an additional 135,687 shares in the last quarter. 98.46% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors.

About Veeco Instruments

Veeco Instruments Inc, together with its subsidiaries, develops, manufactures, sells, and supports semiconductor and thin film process equipment primarily to make electronic devices in the United States, Europe, the Middle East, and Africa, China, Rest of the Asia-Pacific, and internationally. The company offers laser annealing, ion beam deposition and etch, metal organic chemical vapor deposition, single wafer wet processing and surface preparation, molecular beam epitaxy, advanced packaging lithography, atomic layer deposition, and other deposition systems.