Ariel Investments LLC Trims Stake in Littelfuse, Inc. (NASDAQ:LFUS)

Ariel Investments LLC cut its position in shares of Littelfuse, Inc. (NASDAQ:LFUS - Free Report) by 6.1% in the 4th quarter, according to the company in its most recent Form 13F filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission. The firm owned 298,065 shares of the technology company's stock after selling 19,206 shares during the quarter. Ariel Investments LLC owned about 1.20% of Littelfuse worth $70,239,000 at the end of the most recent reporting period.

Several other hedge funds and other institutional investors have also bought and sold shares of the company. Norges Bank bought a new stake in shares of Littelfuse during the 4th quarter valued at about $131,579,000. Raymond James Financial Inc. acquired a new stake in shares of Littelfuse during the 4th quarter worth approximately $32,865,000. T. Rowe Price Investment Management Inc. increased its stake in shares of Littelfuse by 7.9% in the 4th quarter. T. Rowe Price Investment Management Inc. now owns 763,396 shares of the technology company's stock valued at $179,895,000 after acquiring an additional 55,835 shares in the last quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. lifted its position in shares of Littelfuse by 1.5% during the 4th quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 2,807,162 shares of the technology company's stock valued at $661,508,000 after acquiring an additional 40,423 shares during the period. Finally, Thrivent Financial for Lutherans boosted its stake in Littelfuse by 13.5% during the fourth quarter. Thrivent Financial for Lutherans now owns 315,741 shares of the technology company's stock worth $74,405,000 after acquiring an additional 37,583 shares in the last quarter. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 96.14% of the company's stock.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

Several brokerages have recently weighed in on LFUS. Oppenheimer dropped their price objective on shares of Littelfuse from $310.00 to $275.00 and set an "outperform" rating on the stock in a report on Thursday, May 1st. Benchmark reaffirmed a "hold" rating on shares of Littelfuse in a research note on Wednesday, April 30th. Robert W. Baird upped their target price on Littelfuse from $182.00 to $194.00 and gave the stock a "neutral" rating in a research report on Thursday, May 1st. StockNews.com raised shares of Littelfuse from a "hold" rating to a "buy" rating in a research report on Tuesday. Finally, Baird R W downgraded shares of Littelfuse from a "strong-buy" rating to a "hold" rating in a report on Tuesday, April 15th. Four equities research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and three have assigned a buy rating to the company. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, the stock presently has an average rating of "Hold" and an average target price of $252.25.

Littelfuse Stock Performance

Shares of LFUS stock traded up $8.09 during trading on Thursday, hitting $199.18. The company's stock had a trading volume of 65,275 shares, compared to its average volume of 156,075. The company has a current ratio of 3.61, a quick ratio of 2.62 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.32. The company has a market cap of $4.92 billion, a PE ratio of 44.26, a P/E/G ratio of 2.24 and a beta of 1.38. The business has a fifty day moving average of $187.32 and a 200-day moving average of $223.68. Littelfuse, Inc. has a 52 week low of $142.10 and a 52 week high of $275.58.

Littelfuse (NASDAQ:LFUS - Get Free Report) last announced its quarterly earnings data on Tuesday, April 29th. The technology company reported $2.19 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating analysts' consensus estimates of $1.82 by $0.37. Littelfuse had a return on equity of 8.55% and a net margin of 5.16%. The firm had revenue of $554.31 million during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $537.60 million. During the same quarter in the prior year, the company earned $1.76 EPS. The business's revenue for the quarter was up 3.5% on a year-over-year basis. As a group, research analysts anticipate that Littelfuse, Inc. will post 9.49 earnings per share for the current year.

Littelfuse Announces Dividend

The business also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Thursday, June 5th. Investors of record on Thursday, May 22nd will be issued a $0.70 dividend. The ex-dividend date is Thursday, May 22nd. This represents a $2.80 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 1.41%. Littelfuse's dividend payout ratio (DPR) is presently 64.81%.

Insider Activity at Littelfuse

In other news, SVP Deepak Nayar sold 1,477 shares of the company's stock in a transaction on Monday, May 5th. The stock was sold at an average price of $197.50, for a total transaction of $291,707.50. Following the transaction, the senior vice president now owns 5,975 shares of the company's stock, valued at $1,180,062.50. This represents a 19.82 % decrease in their position. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available at the SEC website. 2.50% of the stock is owned by company insiders.

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.