Teradyne (NASDAQ:TER) Rating Lowered to "Sell" at Wall Street Zen

Key Points

• Teradyne's stock rating has been downgraded from "hold" to "sell" by Wall Street Zen, signaling potential concerns in the company's future performance.
• Despite the downgrade, other brokerages like UBS and Morgan Stanley have raised their price targets on Teradyne, indicating mixed opinions among analysts regarding the company's value.
• Teradyne recently initiated a $1 billion stock buyback program, suggesting that management believes the stock is currently undervalued.

Wall Street Zen lowered shares of Teradyne (NASDAQ:TER - Free Report) from a hold rating to a sell rating in a report issued on Saturday.

A number of other analysts have also issued reports on the company. Stifel Nicolaus boosted their target price on Teradyne from $85.00 to $100.00 and gave the company a "hold" rating in a research report on Thursday, July 31st. KeyCorp reaffirmed a "sector weight" rating on shares of Teradyne in a research report on Thursday, April 17th. Susquehanna decreased their price target on shares of Teradyne from $155.00 to $133.00 and set a "positive" rating for the company in a research note on Wednesday, April 30th. Cowen reaffirmed a "buy" rating on shares of Teradyne in a research report on Wednesday, July 30th. Finally, Morgan Stanley raised shares of Teradyne from an "underweight" rating to an "equal weight" rating and raised their price objective for the stock from $74.00 to $100.00 in a report on Thursday, July 31st. Three equities research analysts have rated the stock with a sell rating, five have assigned a hold rating, ten have issued a buy rating and one has assigned a strong buy rating to the company. According to MarketBeat, the company has an average rating of "Hold" and a consensus target price of $114.44.

Teradyne Price Performance

NASDAQ TER traded up $1.21 during trading hours on Friday, reaching $106.93. The company's stock had a trading volume of 6,016,445 shares, compared to its average volume of 3,500,616. The company's 50-day moving average is $90.28 and its two-hundred day moving average is $92.25. Teradyne has a 1-year low of $65.77 and a 1-year high of $144.16. The firm has a market capitalization of $17.15 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 37.00, a P/E/G ratio of 2.19 and a beta of 1.72.

Teradyne (NASDAQ:TER - Get Free Report) last issued its quarterly earnings results on Tuesday, July 29th. The company reported $0.57 EPS for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $0.54 by $0.03. Teradyne had a return on equity of 18.16% and a net margin of 16.59%. The firm had revenue of $651.80 million during the quarter, compared to analysts' expectations of $649.02 million. During the same period in the previous year, the business earned $0.86 earnings per share. The firm's revenue for the quarter was down 10.7% on a year-over-year basis. Equities analysts forecast that Teradyne will post 3.88 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Teradyne Dividend Announcement

The firm also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Friday, June 13th. Stockholders of record on Thursday, May 22nd were paid a dividend of $0.12 per share. This represents a $0.48 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 0.4%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Thursday, May 22nd. Teradyne's dividend payout ratio (DPR) is 16.61%.

Teradyne announced that its board has initiated a share repurchase plan on Monday, April 28th that authorizes the company to repurchase $1.00 billion in outstanding shares. This repurchase authorization authorizes the company to reacquire up to 8.1% of its shares through open market purchases. Shares repurchase plans are often an indication that the company's board believes its shares are undervalued.

Insider Buying and Selling

In related news, CEO Gregory Stephen Smith sold 554 shares of the stock in a transaction dated Wednesday, July 30th. The stock was sold at an average price of $105.73, for a total transaction of $58,574.42. Following the transaction, the chief executive officer directly owned 97,547 shares in the company, valued at approximately $10,313,644.31. This represents a 0.56% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which can be accessed through this hyperlink. Company insiders own 0.16% of the company's stock.

Institutional Inflows and Outflows

Hedge funds and other institutional investors have recently added to or reduced their stakes in the company. Covestor Ltd lifted its holdings in shares of Teradyne by 12.3% in the 4th quarter. Covestor Ltd now owns 901 shares of the company's stock worth $113,000 after purchasing an additional 99 shares during the last quarter. Snowden Capital Advisors LLC increased its holdings in shares of Teradyne by 2.8% in the 4th quarter. Snowden Capital Advisors LLC now owns 3,748 shares of the company's stock worth $472,000 after acquiring an additional 103 shares during the period. Fulton Bank N.A. lifted its position in Teradyne by 4.3% in the 2nd quarter. Fulton Bank N.A. now owns 2,722 shares of the company's stock valued at $245,000 after purchasing an additional 113 shares during the last quarter. CIBC Private Wealth Group LLC grew its position in Teradyne by 4.0% in the 4th quarter. CIBC Private Wealth Group LLC now owns 3,127 shares of the company's stock worth $429,000 after purchasing an additional 119 shares during the last quarter. Finally, HighTower Advisors LLC increased its stake in shares of Teradyne by 1.0% in the first quarter. HighTower Advisors LLC now owns 12,528 shares of the company's stock valued at $1,035,000 after purchasing an additional 124 shares during the period. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 99.77% of the company's stock.

Teradyne Company 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.