Littelfuse, Inc. (NASDAQ:LFUS) to Issue $0.70 Quarterly Dividend

Littelfuse, Inc. (NASDAQ:LFUS) announced a quarterly dividend on Thursday, October 24th,Zacks Dividends reports. Shareholders of record on Thursday, November 21st will be paid a dividend of 0.70 per share by the technology company on Thursday, December 5th. This represents a $2.80 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 1.18%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Thursday, November 21st.

Littelfuse has increased its dividend by an average of 9.2% per year over the last three years and has increased its dividend every year for the last 15 years. Littelfuse has a payout ratio of 27.1% meaning its dividend is sufficiently covered by earnings. Equities analysts expect Littelfuse to earn $9.92 per share next year, which means the company should continue to be able to cover its $2.80 annual dividend with an expected future payout ratio of 28.2%.

Littelfuse Stock Performance

NASDAQ:LFUS opened at $237.82 on Wednesday. Littelfuse has a 12 month low of $222.91 and a 12 month 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 market capitalization of $5.90 billion, a PE ratio of 30.57, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 2.37 and a beta of 1.28. The business’s fifty day moving average price is $255.12 and its 200 day moving average price is $256.65.

Littelfuse (NASDAQ:LFUS) last issued its earnings results on Tuesday, October 29th. The technology company reported $2.71 earnings per share for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate 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 return on equity of 8.49% and a net margin of 8.88%. The business’s quarterly revenue was down 6.5% on a year-over-year basis. During the same quarter last year, the company earned $2.97 EPS. On average, sell-side analysts anticipate that Littelfuse will post 8.47 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Wall Street Analyst Weigh In

Several research analysts have recently issued reports on LFUS shares. Stifel Nicolaus upgraded shares of Littelfuse from a “hold” rating to a “buy” rating and upped their target price for the company from $270.00 to $280.00 in a report on Tuesday, August 13th. Benchmark reaffirmed a “hold” rating on shares of Littelfuse in a report on Wednesday, October 30th. StockNews.com raised Littelfuse from a “hold” rating to a “buy” rating in a report on Friday, October 18th. Robert W. Baird raised their price target on Littelfuse from $300.00 to $315.00 and gave the stock an “outperform” rating in a research note on Thursday, August 29th. Finally, Oppenheimer upgraded Littelfuse from a “market perform” rating to an “outperform” rating and set a $310.00 price objective for the company in a research note on Thursday, October 17th. Three analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, four have assigned a buy rating and one has given a strong buy rating to the stock. Based on data from MarketBeat, Littelfuse currently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average price target of $285.00.

Insider Buying and Selling at Littelfuse

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