Wall Street Zen Downgrades Littelfuse (NASDAQ:LFUS) to Buy

Key Points

• Littelfuse's rating was downgraded from "strong-buy" to "buy" by Wall Street Zen in a recent research note.
• Oppenheimer lowered its price target for Littelfuse shares from $310.00 to $275.00, while the stock has an average target price of $234.50 based on consensus estimates.
• In the last quarter, Littelfuse reported $613.41 million in revenue, significantly exceeding the consensus estimate, with earnings per share at $2.85, beating expectations by $0.50.

Wall Street Zen downgraded shares of Littelfuse (NASDAQ:LFUS - Free Report) from a strong-buy rating to a buy rating in a research note released on Saturday morning.

A number of other research firms have also recently commented on LFUS. Robert W. Baird boosted their price objective on Littelfuse from $182.00 to $194.00 and gave the company a "neutral" rating in a research report on Thursday, May 1st. Benchmark reaffirmed a "hold" rating on shares of Littelfuse in a research report on Wednesday, May 28th. Finally, Oppenheimer dropped their price target on Littelfuse from $310.00 to $275.00 and set an "outperform" rating on the stock in a research note on Thursday, May 1st. One investment analyst has rated the stock with a Buy rating and three have given a Hold rating to the company's stock. According to data from MarketBeat, the company currently has a consensus rating of "Hold" and an average target price of $234.50.

Littelfuse Stock Down 0.3%

LFUS stock traded down $0.67 during trading on Friday, reaching $261.74. 12,473 shares of the company traded hands, compared to its average volume of 211,722. Littelfuse has a 12 month low of $142.10 and a 12 month high of $274.50. The business has a 50 day simple moving average of $240.76 and a 200 day simple moving average of $217.17. The company has a market capitalization of $6.49 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 54.53, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 2.25 and a beta of 1.41. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.30, a quick ratio of 2.98 and a current ratio of 4.06.

Littelfuse (NASDAQ:LFUS - Get Free Report) last issued its quarterly earnings results on Wednesday, July 30th. The technology company reported $2.85 earnings per share for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $2.35 by $0.50. The business had revenue of $613.41 million during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $571.04 million. Littelfuse had a return on equity of 9.74% and a net margin of 5.30%.The company's quarterly revenue was up 9.8% on a year-over-year basis. During the same quarter last year, the company earned $1.97 earnings per share. Littelfuse has set its Q3 2025 guidance at 2.650-2.850 EPS. On average, equities research analysts anticipate that Littelfuse will post 9.49 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Littelfuse Increases Dividend

The company also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Thursday, September 4th. Investors of record on Thursday, August 21st will be issued a dividend of $0.75 per share. This is a boost from Littelfuse's previous quarterly dividend of $0.70. This represents a $3.00 annualized dividend and a yield of 1.1%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Thursday, August 21st. Littelfuse's payout ratio is presently 62.50%.

Insider Buying and Selling

In other news, SVP Alexander Conrad sold 13,210 shares of the business's stock in a transaction on Monday, August 25th. The stock was sold at an average price of $261.43, for a total value of $3,453,490.30. Following the completion of the transaction, the senior vice president directly owned 3,427 shares of the company's stock, valued at $895,920.61. The trade was a 79.40% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which is available through the SEC website. Also, Director T J. Chung sold 2,343 shares of Littelfuse stock in a transaction on Monday, August 11th. The shares were sold at an average price of $246.11, for a total value of $576,635.73. Following the completion of the sale, the director directly owned 18,730 shares of the company's stock, valued at approximately $4,609,640.30. This represents a 11.12% decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Over the last ninety days, insiders sold 25,759 shares of company stock valued at $6,697,362. 2.50% of the stock is owned by insiders.

Institutional Investors Weigh In On Littelfuse

A number of hedge funds and other institutional investors have recently made changes to their positions in the business. Huntington National Bank grew its position in Littelfuse by 264.7% during the second quarter. Huntington National Bank now owns 124 shares of the technology company's stock valued at $28,000 after acquiring an additional 90 shares during the period. First Horizon Advisors Inc. grew its position in Littelfuse by 228.2% during the first quarter. First Horizon Advisors Inc. now owns 128 shares of the technology company's stock valued at $25,000 after acquiring an additional 89 shares during the period. Traub Capital Management LLC purchased a new stake in Littelfuse during the second quarter valued at about $29,000. Evelyn Partners Investment Management Services Ltd purchased a new stake in Littelfuse during the second quarter valued at about $33,000. Finally, AlphaQuest LLC purchased a new stake in Littelfuse during the first quarter valued at about $29,000. Hedge funds and other institutional investors 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.