Analysts Set Littelfuse, Inc. (NASDAQ:LFUS) Price Target at $280.00

Littelfuse, Inc. (NASDAQ:LFUS) has received an average rating of “Moderate Buy” from the seven research firms that are currently covering the firm, Marketbeat reports. Three research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, three have assigned a buy rating and one has given a strong buy rating to the company. The average 12-month price objective among analysts that have issued ratings on the stock in the last year is $280.00.

Several research analysts have weighed in on LFUS shares. Robert W. Baird lowered their price objective on Littelfuse from $300.00 to $290.00 and set an “outperform” rating on the stock in a research report on Thursday. Benchmark reaffirmed a “hold” rating on shares of Littelfuse in a report on Wednesday, January 29th. StockNews.com raised Littelfuse from a “hold” rating to a “buy” rating in a report on Friday, October 18th. Finally, Oppenheimer raised shares of Littelfuse from a “market perform” rating to an “outperform” rating and set a $310.00 price objective for the company in a research report on Thursday, October 17th.

Insider Transactions at Littelfuse

In related news, CAO Jeffrey G. Gorski sold 700 shares of Littelfuse stock in a transaction on Thursday, December 12th. The stock was sold at an average price of $249.02, for a total transaction of $174,314.00. Following the completion of the sale, the chief accounting officer now owns 3,105 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $773,207.10. This trade represents a 18.40 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is accessible through the SEC website. Company insiders own 2.30% of the company’s stock.

Institutional Inflows and Outflows

Several hedge funds and other institutional investors have recently modified their holdings of LFUS. Jane Street Group LLC grew its stake in shares of Littelfuse by 126.9% during the third quarter. Jane Street Group LLC now owns 11,418 shares of the technology company’s stock valued at $3,029,000 after buying an additional 6,386 shares during the last quarter. Chesapeake Capital Corp IL bought a new stake in Littelfuse during the 3rd quarter valued at $570,000. Thrivent Financial for Lutherans increased its position in shares of Littelfuse by 1.4% in the third quarter. Thrivent Financial for Lutherans now owns 278,158 shares of the technology company’s stock valued at $73,781,000 after acquiring an additional 3,831 shares during the period. New York State Common Retirement Fund boosted its holdings in shares of Littelfuse by 3.9% during the third quarter. New York State Common Retirement Fund now owns 141,157 shares of the technology company’s stock worth $37,442,000 after purchasing an additional 5,344 shares during the period. Finally, Eastern Bank bought a new stake in shares of Littelfuse in the third quarter worth about $530,000. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 96.14% of the company’s stock.

Littelfuse Price Performance

NASDAQ:LFUS opened at $238.36 on Friday. The company has a current ratio of 3.55, a quick ratio of 2.52 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.31. The firm has a fifty day simple moving average of $239.61 and a 200 day simple moving average of $250.06. Littelfuse has a 1-year low of $222.73 and a 1-year high of $275.58. The stock has a market capitalization of $5.92 billion, a PE ratio of 52.97, a P/E/G ratio of 1.92 and a beta of 1.26.

Littelfuse (NASDAQ:LFUS) last issued its earnings results on Tuesday, January 28th. The technology company reported $2.04 EPS for the quarter, hitting the consensus estimate of $2.04. Littelfuse had a return on equity of 8.48% and a net margin of 5.16%. During the same quarter in the prior year, the company posted $2.02 earnings per share. On average, research analysts expect that Littelfuse will post 10.19 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Littelfuse Dividend Announcement

The company also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Thursday, March 6th. Stockholders of record on Thursday, February 20th will be issued a $0.70 dividend. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Thursday, February 20th. This represents a $2.80 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 1.17%. Littelfuse’s dividend payout ratio is currently 62.22%.

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.