Littelfuse, Inc. (NASDAQ:LFUS) Given Average Recommendation of "Hold" by Analysts

Shares of Littelfuse, Inc. (NASDAQ:LFUS - Get Free Report) have received an average rating of "Hold" from the six ratings firms that are currently covering the stock, MarketBeat Ratings reports. Four research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and two have given a buy rating to the company. The average 1 year target price among brokerages that have issued ratings on the stock in the last year is $252.25.

Several equities research analysts have issued reports on LFUS shares. Benchmark reaffirmed a "hold" rating on shares of Littelfuse in a research note on Wednesday, May 28th. Robert W. Baird upped their price objective on shares of Littelfuse from $182.00 to $194.00 and gave the company a "neutral" rating in a research note on Thursday, May 1st. Oppenheimer lowered their target price on shares of Littelfuse from $310.00 to $275.00 and set an "outperform" rating for the company in a research note on Thursday, May 1st. Baird R W downgraded Littelfuse from a "strong-buy" rating to a "hold" rating in a report on Tuesday, April 15th. Finally, Wall Street Zen lowered Littelfuse from a "buy" rating to a "hold" rating in a research note on Wednesday, May 21st.

Insiders Place Their Bets

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 completion of the sale, the senior vice president now directly owns 5,975 shares in the company, valued at $1,180,062.50. This represents a 19.82% decrease in their position. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which is available at this link. 2.50% of the stock is currently owned by insiders.

Institutional Investors Weigh In On Littelfuse

A number of institutional investors have recently added to or reduced their stakes in LFUS. Vanguard Group Inc. lifted its stake in shares of Littelfuse by 1.5% in the 4th quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 2,807,162 shares of the technology company's stock valued at $661,508,000 after purchasing an additional 40,423 shares in the last quarter. Neuberger Berman Group LLC increased its position in Littelfuse by 1.2% during the 4th quarter. Neuberger Berman Group LLC now owns 1,047,025 shares of the technology company's stock worth $246,732,000 after purchasing an additional 11,958 shares in the last quarter. T. Rowe Price Investment Management Inc. raised its holdings in Littelfuse by 7.9% in the fourth quarter. T. Rowe Price Investment Management Inc. now owns 763,396 shares of the technology company's stock valued at $179,895,000 after buying an additional 55,835 shares during the period. Van Lanschot Kempen Investment Management N.V. lifted its position in Littelfuse by 39.9% during the first quarter. Van Lanschot Kempen Investment Management N.V. now owns 618,215 shares of the technology company's stock valued at $121,628,000 after buying an additional 176,243 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Norges Bank acquired a new position in Littelfuse during the fourth quarter valued at approximately $131,579,000. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 96.14% of the company's stock.

Littelfuse Price Performance

Shares of NASDAQ:LFUS traded up $3.51 during midday trading on Thursday, hitting $217.69. 102,011 shares of the stock were exchanged, compared to its average volume of 162,915. Littelfuse has a twelve month low of $142.10 and a twelve month high of $275.58. 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 50 day moving average price of $186.82 and a 200-day moving average price of $217.67. The stock has a market cap of $5.38 billion, a P/E ratio of 48.38, a PEG ratio of 2.24 and a beta of 1.38.

Littelfuse (NASDAQ:LFUS - Get Free Report) last released its quarterly earnings results on Tuesday, April 29th. The technology company reported $2.19 earnings per share for the quarter, topping 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 company had revenue of $554.31 million during the quarter, compared to analysts' expectations of $537.60 million. During the same period in the previous year, the firm posted $1.76 earnings per share. The business's revenue for the quarter was up 3.5% compared to the same quarter last year. On average, research analysts forecast that Littelfuse will post 9.49 earnings per share for the current year.

Littelfuse Announces Dividend

The business also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Thursday, June 5th. Investors of record on Thursday, May 22nd were given a dividend of $0.70 per share. This represents a $2.80 annualized dividend and a yield of 1.29%. The ex-dividend date was Thursday, May 22nd. Littelfuse's dividend payout ratio (DPR) is 64.81%.

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.