Jennison Associates LLC Boosts Stake in Littelfuse, Inc. (NASDAQ:LFUS)

Jennison Associates LLC raised its position in shares of Littelfuse, Inc. (NASDAQ:LFUS) by 38.4% in the 3rd quarter, according to its most recent 13F filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). The institutional investor owned 181,141 shares of the technology company’s stock after buying an additional 50,304 shares during the quarter. Jennison Associates LLC’s holdings in Littelfuse were worth $48,048,000 as of its most recent SEC filing.

Other large investors have also added to or reduced their stakes in the company. SG Americas Securities LLC increased 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. Vanguard Group Inc. raised its position in shares of Littelfuse by 0.6% during the 1st quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 2,679,767 shares of the technology company’s stock valued at $649,442,000 after buying an additional 17,119 shares in the last quarter. Quadrature Capital Ltd raised its position in shares of Littelfuse by 66.7% during the 1st quarter. Quadrature Capital Ltd now owns 28,113 shares of the technology company’s stock valued at $6,817,000 after buying an additional 11,247 shares in the last quarter. Chesapeake Capital Corp IL purchased a new position in Littelfuse in the third quarter worth about $570,000. Finally, Victory Capital Management Inc. grew its position in Littelfuse by 13.2% in the second quarter. Victory Capital Management Inc. now owns 501,504 shares of the technology company’s stock worth $128,179,000 after acquiring an additional 58,529 shares in the last quarter. Institutional investors own 96.14% of the company’s stock.

Littelfuse Trading Up 0.7 %

NASDAQ LFUS opened at $238.87 on Friday. The stock has a market cap of $5.93 billion, a PE ratio of 30.58, a PEG ratio of 2.34 and a beta of 1.28. Littelfuse, Inc. has a 12 month low of $222.91 and a 12 month high of $275.58. The company’s 50-day moving average price is $254.82 and its 200-day moving average price is $256.46. 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 (NASDAQ:LFUS) last issued its earnings results on Tuesday, October 29th. The technology company reported $2.71 EPS for the quarter, topping analysts’ consensus estimates of $2.09 by $0.62. Littelfuse had a net margin of 8.88% and a return on equity of 8.49%. The business had revenue of $567.39 million for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $557.38 million. During the same period in the prior year, the firm earned $2.97 EPS. The company’s revenue for the quarter was down 6.5% compared to the same quarter last year. Equities research analysts forecast that Littelfuse, Inc. will post 8.47 earnings per share for the current year.

Littelfuse Announces Dividend

The company also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Thursday, December 5th. Shareholders of record on Thursday, November 21st will be given a dividend of $0.70 per share. This represents a $2.80 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 1.17%. The ex-dividend date is Thursday, November 21st. Littelfuse’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is presently 35.99%.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

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

Insiders Place Their Bets

In other news, CEO David W. Heinzmann sold 2,091 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Monday, August 26th. The shares were sold at an average price of $274.65, for a total value of $574,293.15. Following the completion of the sale, the chief executive officer now owns 59,654 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $16,383,971.10. This represents a 3.39 % decrease in their position. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is accessible through this link. Also, SVP Matthew Cole sold 1,436 shares of the stock in a transaction that occurred on Thursday, September 12th. The shares were sold at an average price of $246.02, for a total transaction of $353,284.72. Following the transaction, the senior vice president now owns 5,522 shares in the company, valued at approximately $1,358,522.44. This represents a 20.64 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Company 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.