Investors Purchase High Volume of Put Options on Teradyne (NASDAQ:TER)

Teradyne, Inc. (NASDAQ:TER) was the recipient of some unusual options trading activity on Monday. Stock traders purchased 60,080 put options on the company. This represents an increase of 1,555% compared to the typical daily volume of 3,631 put options.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

Several analysts have recently commented on TER shares. Stifel Nicolaus decreased their price objective on Teradyne from $125.00 to $110.00 and set a “hold” rating for the company in a report on Wednesday, March 12th. Susquehanna decreased their price target on Teradyne from $165.00 to $155.00 and set a “positive” rating for the company in a research note on Wednesday, March 12th. Robert W. Baird dropped their price target on Teradyne from $140.00 to $110.00 and set an “outperform” rating on the stock in a research note on Thursday, March 13th. KeyCorp cut their price objective on shares of Teradyne from $150.00 to $140.00 and set an “overweight” rating on the stock in a report on Wednesday, March 12th. Finally, Cantor Fitzgerald lowered their target price on shares of Teradyne from $150.00 to $110.00 and set an “overweight” rating for the company in a research note on Wednesday, March 12th. Two research analysts have rated the stock with a sell rating, three have assigned a hold rating, twelve have given a buy rating and one has given a strong buy rating to the company’s stock. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, the stock currently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus target price of $121.44.

Insider Activity

In other Teradyne news, VP Ryan Driscoll sold 437 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction dated Thursday, January 30th. The shares were sold at an average price of $102.00, for a total value of $44,574.00. Following the completion of the transaction, the vice president now directly owns 4,312 shares in the company, valued at approximately $439,824. The trade was a 9.20 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which can be accessed through the SEC website. Also, CFO Sanjay Mehta sold 1,789 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction dated Tuesday, January 28th. The shares were sold at an average price of $120.51, for a total transaction of $215,592.39. Following the completion of the sale, the chief financial officer now owns 33,308 shares in the company, valued at $4,013,947.08. This represents a 5.10 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Over the last ninety days, insiders have sold 5,399 shares of company stock worth $612,734. Corporate insiders own 0.36% of the company’s stock.

Institutional Investors Weigh In On Teradyne

Hedge funds have recently modified their holdings of the company. Rhumbline Advisers raised its holdings in Teradyne by 8.8% in the 1st quarter. Rhumbline Advisers now owns 334,949 shares of the company’s stock worth $27,667,000 after purchasing an additional 27,132 shares during the period. LVM Capital Management Ltd. MI purchased a new position in shares of Teradyne during the 1st quarter valued at approximately $414,000. Parallel Advisors LLC grew its stake in Teradyne by 18.6% in the 1st quarter. Parallel Advisors LLC now owns 1,783 shares of the company’s stock valued at $147,000 after acquiring an additional 279 shares during the period. GAMMA Investing LLC increased its holdings in Teradyne by 9,541.1% in the 1st quarter. GAMMA Investing LLC now owns 332,135 shares of the company’s stock worth $27,434,000 after acquiring an additional 328,690 shares in the last quarter. Finally, AdvisorNet Financial Inc lifted its holdings in Teradyne by 319.0% during the first quarter. AdvisorNet Financial Inc now owns 595 shares of the company’s stock valued at $49,000 after purchasing an additional 453 shares in the last quarter. 99.77% of the stock is owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

Teradyne Stock Down 6.7 %

Shares of TER opened at $67.96 on Wednesday. The company has a market capitalization of $10.93 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 20.41, a PEG ratio of 2.83 and a beta of 1.65. Teradyne has a 52 week low of $65.77 and a 52 week high of $163.21. The stock’s 50-day moving average price is $99.30 and its 200-day moving average price is $114.37.

Teradyne (NASDAQ:TER) last released its quarterly earnings data on Wednesday, January 29th. The company reported $0.95 EPS for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $0.91 by $0.04. Teradyne had a return on equity of 19.08% and a net margin of 19.23%. As a group, equities analysts anticipate that Teradyne will post 3.88 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Teradyne Dividend Announcement

The company also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Friday, March 14th. Shareholders of record on Friday, February 14th were given a $0.12 dividend. The ex-dividend date was Friday, February 14th. This represents a $0.48 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 0.71%. Teradyne’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is currently 14.41%.

About Teradyne

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.