109,750 Shares in National Instruments Co. (NASDAQ:NATI) Bought by GABELLI & Co INVESTMENT ADVISERS INC.

GABELLI & Co INVESTMENT ADVISERS INC. bought a new position in National Instruments Co. (NASDAQ:NATI) during the first quarter, Holdings Channel.com reports. The institutional investor bought 109,750 shares of the technology company’s stock, valued at approximately $5,752,000. National Instruments comprises about 1.1% of GABELLI & Co INVESTMENT ADVISERS INC.’s holdings, making the stock its 25th biggest holding.

Several other institutional investors and hedge funds have also recently modified their holdings of the business. Vanguard Group Inc. grew its holdings in shares of National Instruments by 2.3% during the third quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 13,180,350 shares of the technology company’s stock worth $497,426,000 after purchasing an additional 297,706 shares in the last quarter. Amundi lifted its position in National Instruments by 3.0% during the fourth quarter. Amundi now owns 5,438,264 shares of the technology company’s stock valued at $211,331,000 after purchasing an additional 156,431 shares during the last quarter. State Street Corp grew its stake in National Instruments by 2.3% in the 3rd quarter. State Street Corp now owns 3,685,700 shares of the technology company’s stock worth $139,098,000 after buying an additional 81,689 shares in the last quarter. Morgan Stanley increased its holdings in shares of National Instruments by 219.5% in the 4th quarter. Morgan Stanley now owns 3,247,853 shares of the technology company’s stock worth $119,846,000 after buying an additional 2,231,458 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Neuberger Berman Group LLC raised its position in shares of National Instruments by 1.3% during the 4th quarter. Neuberger Berman Group LLC now owns 2,134,434 shares of the technology company’s stock valued at $78,761,000 after buying an additional 26,682 shares in the last quarter. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 80.40% of the company’s stock.

National Instruments Trading Down 0.0 %

Shares of NATI traded down $0.01 during trading hours on Friday, hitting $59.80. The company had a trading volume of 63,053 shares, compared to its average volume of 1,883,289. The company has a quick ratio of 1.54, a current ratio of 2.49 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.46. The stock’s 50 day moving average price is $58.43 and its 200 day moving average price is $56.35. The firm has a market cap of $7.94 billion, a P/E ratio of 44.30 and a beta of 1.15. National Instruments Co. has a 52-week low of $34.97 and a 52-week high of $59.98.

National Instruments (NASDAQ:NATI) last posted its earnings results on Thursday, July 27th. The technology company reported $0.43 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, missing the consensus estimate of $0.47 by ($0.04). National Instruments had a return on equity of 22.27% and a net margin of 10.37%. The business had revenue of $416.80 million during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $441.49 million. On average, research analysts predict that National Instruments Co. will post 1.74 EPS for the current year.

National Instruments Announces Dividend

The business also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Tuesday, August 29th. Shareholders of record on Tuesday, August 8th were issued a $0.28 dividend. The ex-dividend date was Monday, August 7th. This represents a $1.12 annualized dividend and a yield of 1.87%. National Instruments’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is presently 82.96%.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

Separately, StockNews.com initiated coverage on National Instruments in a research note on Saturday, September 2nd. They issued a “buy” rating on the stock. Six investment analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and two have issued a buy rating to the stock. According to data from MarketBeat, the company presently has a consensus rating of “Hold” and an average price target of $52.57.

National Instruments Company Profile

National Instruments Corporation provides a software-centric platform to engineers and scientists worldwide. Its programming environments software includes NI LabVIEW, a graphical software platform to visualize hardware configuration, measurement data, and debugging; NI LabWindows/CVI, an ANSI C integrated development environment and engineering toolbox; and NI Measurement Studio, a suite of .NET tools for building engineering applications in Microsoft Visual Studio.