Littelfuse (NASDAQ:LFUS) Stock Price Up 5.4% After Dividend Announcement

Shares of Littelfuse, Inc. (NASDAQ:LFUS) were up 5.4% on Wednesday following a dividend announcement from the company. The stock traded as high as $236.68 and last traded at $236.04. Approximately 54,939 shares changed hands during trading, a decline of 55% from the average daily volume of 123,196 shares. The stock had previously closed at $224.00.

The newly announced dividend which will be paid on Thursday, March 6th. Investors of record on Thursday, February 20th will be paid a dividend of $0.70 per share. This represents a $2.80 annualized dividend and a yield of 1.18%. Littelfuse’s payout ratio is 35.99%.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

Several brokerages recently weighed in on LFUS. Oppenheimer raised shares of Littelfuse from a “market perform” rating to an “outperform” rating and set a $310.00 target price on the stock in a report on Thursday, October 17th. StockNews.com raised Littelfuse from a “hold” rating to a “buy” rating in a report on Friday, October 18th. Finally, Benchmark restated a “hold” rating on shares of Littelfuse in a research report on Wednesday. Three investment analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, four have assigned a buy rating and one has assigned a strong buy rating to the company. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, Littelfuse currently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus target price of $285.00.

Littelfuse Stock Performance

The company has a market cap of $5.89 billion, a PE ratio of 30.50, a PEG ratio of 1.93 and a beta of 1.26. The stock has a 50 day simple moving average of $239.69 and a two-hundred day simple moving average of $250.71. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.31, a current ratio of 3.55 and a quick ratio of 2.52.

Littelfuse (NASDAQ:LFUS) last released its quarterly earnings results on Tuesday, January 28th. The technology company reported $2.04 EPS for the quarter, meeting the consensus estimate of $2.04. Littelfuse had a net margin of 8.88% and a return on equity of 8.49%. During the same period in the prior year, the business posted $2.02 earnings per share. Equities analysts predict that Littelfuse, Inc. will post 8.47 EPS for the current year.

Insider Transactions at Littelfuse

In related news, CAO Jeffrey G. Gorski sold 700 shares of Littelfuse stock in a transaction on Thursday, December 12th. The shares were sold at an average price of $249.02, for a total value of $174,314.00. Following the transaction, the chief accounting officer now directly owns 3,105 shares in the company, valued at $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 available at the SEC website. Insiders own 2.30% of the company’s stock.

Institutional Trading of Littelfuse

Several hedge funds have recently made changes to their positions in LFUS. Bank of Montreal Can boosted its stake in shares of Littelfuse by 14.6% in the second quarter. Bank of Montreal Can now owns 3,378 shares of the technology company’s stock valued at $896,000 after buying an additional 430 shares in the last quarter. Squarepoint Ops LLC boosted its position in shares of Littelfuse by 41.4% during the 2nd quarter. Squarepoint Ops LLC now owns 2,252 shares of the technology company’s stock worth $576,000 after purchasing an additional 659 shares in the last quarter. AQR Capital Management LLC grew its stake in shares of Littelfuse by 86.6% during the 2nd quarter. AQR Capital Management LLC now owns 19,617 shares of the technology company’s stock worth $5,014,000 after purchasing an additional 9,104 shares during the period. Algert Global LLC purchased a new position in shares of Littelfuse in the 2nd quarter valued at about $642,000. Finally, Creative Planning lifted its stake in shares of Littelfuse by 30.3% in the second quarter. Creative Planning now owns 2,702 shares of the technology company’s stock valued at $691,000 after purchasing an additional 628 shares during the period. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 96.14% 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.