Littelfuse, Inc. (NASDAQ:LFUS) Sees Significant Growth in Short Interest

Littelfuse, Inc. (NASDAQ:LFUS) was the recipient of a large growth in short interest in October. As of October 31st, there was short interest totalling 235,100 shares, a growth of 6.0% from the October 15th total of 221,700 shares. Approximately 1.0% of the shares of the stock are sold short. Based on an average daily volume of 91,400 shares, the short-interest ratio is currently 2.6 days.

Wall Street Analyst Weigh In

Several research firms have weighed in on LFUS. StockNews.com began coverage on Littelfuse in a research report on Thursday, October 5th. They set a “hold” rating for the company. Robert W. Baird dropped their price target on Littelfuse from $300.00 to $290.00 in a research report on Thursday, October 12th.

Insider Activity at Littelfuse

In other Littelfuse news, SVP Matthew Cole sold 1,800 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction on Tuesday, November 14th. The stock was sold at an average price of $236.93, for a total transaction of $426,474.00. Following the completion of the transaction, the senior vice president now owns 5,530 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $1,310,222.90. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is accessible through this link. 2.70% of the stock is currently owned by company insiders.

Institutional Inflows and Outflows

A number of hedge funds and other institutional investors have recently added to or reduced their stakes in the company. Spire Wealth Management boosted its holdings in Littelfuse by 87.0% in the second quarter. Spire Wealth Management now owns 86 shares of the technology company’s stock valued at $25,000 after acquiring an additional 40 shares during the last quarter. Townsquare Capital LLC boosted its holdings in Littelfuse by 1.7% in the fourth quarter. Townsquare Capital LLC now owns 2,394 shares of the technology company’s stock valued at $527,000 after acquiring an additional 40 shares during the last quarter. Parallel Advisors LLC boosted its holdings in Littelfuse by 45.3% in the first quarter. Parallel Advisors LLC now owns 138 shares of the technology company’s stock valued at $37,000 after acquiring an additional 43 shares during the last quarter. J.P. Morgan Private Wealth Advisors LLC boosted its holdings in Littelfuse by 0.8% in the third quarter. J.P. Morgan Private Wealth Advisors LLC now owns 5,528 shares of the technology company’s stock valued at $1,367,000 after acquiring an additional 46 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Northwestern Mutual Wealth Management Co. boosted its holdings in Littelfuse by 33.1% in the fourth quarter. Northwestern Mutual Wealth Management Co. now owns 201 shares of the technology company’s stock valued at $44,000 after acquiring an additional 50 shares during the last quarter. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 93.39% of the company’s stock.

Littelfuse Price Performance

LFUS stock opened at $238.15 on Friday. Littelfuse has a 52-week low of $211.16 and a 52-week high of $309.94. The stock’s fifty day simple moving average is $237.12 and its 200-day simple moving average is $260.16. The company has a quick ratio of 2.02, a current ratio of 3.03 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.36. The stock has a market capitalization of $5.93 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 19.25, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 1.68 and a beta of 1.32.

Littelfuse (NASDAQ:LFUS) last posted its quarterly earnings data on Tuesday, October 31st. The technology company reported $2.97 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $2.61 by $0.36. Littelfuse had a return on equity of 14.12% and a net margin of 12.69%. The business had revenue of $607.07 million for the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $585.80 million. Equities research analysts expect that Littelfuse will post 11.82 EPS for the current year.

Littelfuse Dividend Announcement

The firm also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Thursday, December 7th. Stockholders of record on Thursday, November 23rd will be issued a dividend of $0.65 per share. This represents a $2.60 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 1.09%. The ex-dividend date is Tuesday, November 21st. Littelfuse’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is 21.02%.

About Littelfuse

Littelfuse, Inc manufactures and sells circuit protection, power control, and sensing products in the Asia-Pacific, the Americas, and Europe. The company operates through Electronic, Transportation, and Industrial segments. The Electronics segment offers fuses and fuse accessories, positive temperature coefficient resettable fuses, 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.