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

Shares of Littelfuse, Inc. (NASDAQ:LFUS) have been assigned a consensus recommendation of “Moderate Buy” from the seven analysts that are presently covering the company, Marketbeat Ratings reports. Three investment analysts have rated the stock with a hold recommendation, three have issued a buy recommendation and one has issued a strong buy recommendation on the company. The average 12-month price objective among brokerages that have covered the stock in the last year is $285.00.

Several analysts have recently commented on LFUS shares. StockNews.com upgraded Littelfuse from a “hold” rating to a “buy” rating in a research note on Friday, October 18th. Benchmark reissued a “hold” rating on shares of Littelfuse in a research note on Wednesday, October 30th. Robert W. Baird upped their target price on Littelfuse from $300.00 to $315.00 and gave the stock an “outperform” rating in a research report on Thursday, August 29th. Finally, Oppenheimer raised shares of Littelfuse from a “market perform” rating to an “outperform” rating and set a $310.00 price target for the company in a research report on Thursday, October 17th.

Littelfuse Trading Down 3.3 %

Shares of LFUS stock opened at $235.60 on Thursday. Littelfuse has a fifty-two week low of $222.91 and a fifty-two week high of $275.58. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.31, a quick ratio of 2.52 and a current ratio of 3.55. The stock has a 50 day simple moving average of $250.22 and a two-hundred day simple moving average of $254.99. The company has a market cap of $5.85 billion, a P/E ratio of 30.28, a PEG ratio of 2.48 and a beta of 1.26.

Littelfuse (NASDAQ:LFUS) last released 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. The company had revenue of $567.39 million during 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%. Littelfuse’s revenue for the quarter was down 6.5% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same quarter in the previous year, the business posted $2.97 EPS. Research analysts forecast that Littelfuse will post 8.47 earnings per share for the current year.

Littelfuse Announces Dividend

The business also recently declared 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. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Thursday, November 21st. This represents a $2.80 annualized dividend and a yield of 1.19%. Littelfuse’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is currently 35.99%.

Insider Buying and Selling at Littelfuse

In other Littelfuse news, CAO Jeffrey G. Gorski sold 700 shares of the stock in a transaction dated Thursday, December 12th. The shares were sold at an average price of $249.02, for a total value of $174,314.00. Following the completion of the sale, the chief accounting officer now owns 3,105 shares in the company, valued at approximately $773,207.10. This trade represents a 18.40 % decrease in their position. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which is accessible through the SEC website. Company insiders own 2.30% of the company’s stock.

Hedge Funds Weigh In On Littelfuse

Several institutional investors have recently modified their holdings of the business. SG Americas Securities LLC boosted its position in Littelfuse by 399.7% in the second quarter. SG Americas Securities LLC now owns 4,712 shares of the technology company’s stock worth $1,204,000 after purchasing an additional 3,769 shares during the last quarter. Chesapeake Capital Corp IL purchased a new position in shares of Littelfuse in the 3rd quarter worth about $570,000. Thrivent Financial for Lutherans grew its position in Littelfuse by 1.4% during the third quarter. Thrivent Financial for Lutherans now owns 278,158 shares of the technology company’s stock valued at $73,781,000 after buying an additional 3,831 shares during the period. Victory Capital Management Inc. increased its holdings in Littelfuse by 13.2% during the second quarter. Victory Capital Management Inc. now owns 501,504 shares of the technology company’s stock worth $128,179,000 after buying an additional 58,529 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Federated Hermes Inc. raised its position in Littelfuse by 3.4% in the second quarter. Federated Hermes Inc. now owns 209,976 shares of the technology company’s stock worth $53,668,000 after acquiring an additional 6,814 shares during the period. 96.14% of the stock is 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.