TCW Group Inc. Acquires 3,455 Shares of Teradyne, Inc. (NASDAQ:TER)

Key Points

• TCW Group Inc. has increased its holdings in Teradyne, Inc. by 32.3%, acquiring a total of 14,158 shares valued at approximately $1.17 million.
• Several other institutional investors have also boosted their stakes in Teradyne, with California Public Employees Retirement System increasing its position by 87.5% in the last quarter.
• Teradyne declared a quarterly dividend of $0.12 and has initiated a stock repurchase program allowing for the repurchase of up to $1 billion in shares, reflecting the board's confidence in its stock valuation.

TCW Group Inc. increased its holdings in shares of Teradyne, Inc. (NASDAQ:TER - Free Report) by 32.3% during the first quarter, according to its most recent Form 13F filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The institutional investor owned 14,158 shares of the company's stock after buying an additional 3,455 shares during the quarter. TCW Group Inc.'s holdings in Teradyne were worth $1,169,000 as of its most recent filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

A number of other institutional investors and hedge funds have also recently bought and sold shares of TER. Nomura Asset Management Co. Ltd. grew its stake in Teradyne by 0.3% in the fourth quarter. Nomura Asset Management Co. Ltd. now owns 77,314 shares of the company's stock valued at $9,735,000 after purchasing an additional 222 shares in the last quarter. DnB Asset Management AS lifted its position in shares of Teradyne by 35.8% in the fourth quarter. DnB Asset Management AS now owns 38,084 shares of the company's stock worth $4,796,000 after buying an additional 10,030 shares during the last quarter. Brown Brothers Harriman & Co. lifted its position in shares of Teradyne by 71.4% in the fourth quarter. Brown Brothers Harriman & Co. now owns 557 shares of the company's stock worth $70,000 after buying an additional 232 shares during the last quarter. Allstate Corp acquired a new stake in shares of Teradyne in the fourth quarter worth about $596,000. Finally, California Public Employees Retirement System lifted its position in shares of Teradyne by 87.5% in the fourth quarter. California Public Employees Retirement System now owns 498,614 shares of the company's stock worth $62,785,000 after buying an additional 232,730 shares during the last quarter. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 99.77% of the company's stock.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

A number of analysts have weighed in on TER shares. Susquehanna reduced their price target on Teradyne from $155.00 to $133.00 and set a "positive" rating for the company in a research report on Wednesday, April 30th. Morgan Stanley boosted their price objective on Teradyne from $68.00 to $74.00 and gave the stock an "underweight" rating in a research report on Wednesday, July 9th. UBS Group boosted their price objective on Teradyne from $110.00 to $120.00 and gave the stock a "buy" rating in a research report on Monday, July 21st. JPMorgan Chase & Co. reissued a "neutral" rating and set a $102.00 price objective (up previously from $88.00) on shares of Teradyne in a research report on Thursday, July 17th. Finally, KeyCorp reissued a "sector weight" rating on shares of Teradyne in a research report on Thursday, April 17th. Three equities research analysts have rated the stock with a sell rating, five have issued a hold rating, nine have issued a buy rating and one has given a strong buy rating to the company. Based on data from MarketBeat, the stock has a consensus rating of "Hold" and a consensus target price of $112.50.

Teradyne Stock Performance

Shares of TER stock traded up $17.10 during trading hours on Wednesday, hitting $107.65. The company had a trading volume of 19,836,794 shares, compared to its average volume of 3,431,612. Teradyne, Inc. has a 12 month low of $65.77 and a 12 month high of $144.16. The firm has a market capitalization of $17.27 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 30.41, a PEG ratio of 4.03 and a beta of 1.70. The firm's fifty day moving average is $88.01 and its 200 day moving average is $93.37.

Teradyne (NASDAQ:TER - Get Free Report) last released its quarterly earnings data on Tuesday, July 29th. The company reported $0.57 earnings per share for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $0.54 by $0.03. Teradyne had a return on equity of 20.06% and a net margin of 19.86%. The company had revenue of $651.80 million for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $649.02 million. During the same period in the prior year, the company posted $0.86 EPS. The company's revenue was down 10.7% compared to the same quarter last year. On average, sell-side analysts expect that Teradyne, Inc. will post 3.88 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Teradyne Announces Dividend

The firm also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Friday, June 13th. Investors of record on Thursday, May 22nd were given a dividend of $0.12 per share. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Thursday, May 22nd. This represents a $0.48 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 0.45%. Teradyne's dividend payout ratio (DPR) is presently 13.56%.

Teradyne announced that its board has approved a share buyback program on Monday, April 28th that allows the company to buyback $1.00 billion in outstanding shares. This buyback authorization allows the company to repurchase up to 8.1% of its stock through open market purchases. Stock buyback programs are generally an indication that the company's board of directors believes its shares are undervalued.

Teradyne Profile

Teradyne, Inc designs, develops, manufactures, and sells automated test systems and robotics products worldwide. It operates through four segments; Semiconductor Test, System Test, Robotics, and Wireless Test. The Semiconductor Test segment offers products and services for wafer level and device package testing of semiconductor devices in automotive, industrial, communications, consumer, smartphones, cloud, computer and electronic game, and other applications.