Analysts Set Littelfuse, Inc. (NASDAQ:LFUS) PT at $278.75

Littelfuse, Inc. (NASDAQ:LFUS) has been given a consensus recommendation of “Moderate Buy” by the six ratings firms that are presently covering the company, MarketBeat.com reports. Three investment analysts have rated the stock with a hold recommendation, two have given a buy recommendation and one has issued a strong buy recommendation on the company. The average 1-year target price among brokerages that have covered the stock in the last year is $278.75.

A number of equities research analysts have recently weighed in on LFUS shares. Baird R W raised shares of Littelfuse from a “hold” rating to a “strong-buy” rating in a report on Friday, May 17th. Stifel Nicolaus raised 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 report on Tuesday, August 13th. Robert W. Baird boosted their price objective on shares of Littelfuse from $300.00 to $315.00 and gave the company an “outperform” rating in a report on Thursday, August 29th. Finally, TD Cowen boosted their price objective on shares of Littelfuse from $250.00 to $260.00 and gave the company a “hold” rating in a report on Thursday, August 1st.

Littelfuse Price Performance

NASDAQ LFUS opened at $248.91 on Tuesday. The firm’s fifty day simple moving average is $258.40 and its two-hundred day simple moving average is $249.45. The company has a current ratio of 3.50, a quick ratio of 2.42 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.32. Littelfuse has a 12-month low of $212.80 and a 12-month high of $275.58. The firm has a market capitalization of $6.17 billion, a P/E ratio of 28.62, a P/E/G ratio of 2.56 and a beta of 1.28.

Littelfuse (NASDAQ:LFUS) last released its quarterly earnings results on Tuesday, July 30th. The technology company reported $1.97 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $1.75 by $0.22. Littelfuse had a net margin of 8.71% and a return on equity of 8.91%. The business had revenue of $558.49 million for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $540.35 million. During the same period in the previous year, the company earned $3.12 earnings per share. The business’s revenue for the quarter was down 8.7% on a year-over-year basis. Analysts forecast that Littelfuse will post 8.18 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Littelfuse Increases Dividend

The firm also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Thursday, September 5th. Investors of record on Thursday, August 22nd were given a dividend of $0.70 per share. The ex-dividend date was Thursday, August 22nd. This is an increase from Littelfuse’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.65. This represents a $2.80 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 1.12%. Littelfuse’s payout ratio is currently 32.07%.

Insider Activity at Littelfuse

In other Littelfuse news, CEO David W. Heinzmann sold 2,091 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction dated 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 transaction, the chief executive officer now owns 59,654 shares in the company, valued at $16,383,971.10. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which is available at this hyperlink. In other Littelfuse news, CEO David W. Heinzmann sold 8,715 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction dated Friday, August 23rd. The shares were sold at an average price of $274.40, for a total value of $2,391,396.00. Following the completion of the transaction, the chief executive officer now owns 59,654 shares in the company, valued at $16,369,057.60. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which is available at this hyperlink. Also, CEO David W. Heinzmann sold 2,091 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction dated Monday, August 26th. The stock was sold at an average price of $274.65, for a total transaction of $574,293.15. Following the completion of the transaction, the chief executive officer now owns 59,654 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $16,383,971.10. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders sold 14,892 shares of company stock worth $4,084,701 over the last three months. Company insiders own 2.30% of the company’s stock.

Institutional Trading of Littelfuse

A number of institutional investors and hedge funds have recently modified their holdings of LFUS. Norges Bank purchased a new stake in shares of Littelfuse during the fourth quarter worth about $150,004,000. Van Lanschot Kempen Investment Management N.V. purchased a new stake in shares of Littelfuse during the second quarter worth about $100,662,000. Westwood Holdings Group Inc. increased its stake in shares of Littelfuse by 223.8% during the first quarter. Westwood Holdings Group Inc. now owns 313,927 shares of the technology company’s stock worth $76,080,000 after purchasing an additional 216,985 shares in the last quarter. Barrow Hanley Mewhinney & Strauss LLC purchased a new stake in shares of Littelfuse during the second quarter worth about $46,037,000. Finally, Lord Abbett & CO. LLC increased its stake in shares of Littelfuse by 88.8% during the first quarter. Lord Abbett & CO. LLC now owns 166,195 shares of the technology company’s stock worth $40,278,000 after purchasing an additional 78,153 shares in the last quarter. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 96.14% of the company’s stock.

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.