Littelfuse, Inc. (NASDAQ:LFUS) Short Interest Up 10.0% in July

Littelfuse, Inc. (NASDAQ:LFUS) was the target of a significant increase in short interest in the month of July. As of July 31st, there was short interest totalling 497,500 shares, an increase of 10.0% from the July 15th total of 452,400 shares. Currently, 2.0% of the shares of the company are short sold. Based on an average trading volume of 119,800 shares, the days-to-cover ratio is presently 4.2 days.

Insider Transactions at Littelfuse

In other Littelfuse news, CEO David W. Heinzmann sold 300 shares of Littelfuse stock in a transaction that occurred on Wednesday, July 17th. The stock was sold at an average price of $273.17, for a total value of $81,951.00. Following the sale, the chief executive officer now owns 59,654 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $16,295,683.18. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available through the SEC website. In other news, CEO David W. Heinzmann sold 3,786 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction on Wednesday, July 31st. The shares were sold at an average price of $273.92, for a total transaction of $1,037,061.12. Following the transaction, the chief executive officer now directly owns 59,654 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $16,340,423.68. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which is accessible through the SEC website. Also, CEO David W. Heinzmann sold 300 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction dated Wednesday, July 17th. The shares were sold at an average price of $273.17, for a total transaction of $81,951.00. Following the completion of the sale, the chief executive officer now owns 59,654 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $16,295,683.18. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Company insiders own 2.30% of the company’s stock.

Institutional Inflows and Outflows

Institutional investors have recently bought and sold shares of the business. Creative Planning grew its holdings in Littelfuse by 30.3% in the 2nd quarter. Creative Planning now owns 2,702 shares of the technology company’s stock valued at $691,000 after buying an additional 628 shares during the period. Algert Global LLC purchased a new stake in Littelfuse in the second quarter valued at approximately $642,000. Earnest Partners LLC increased its position in Littelfuse by 2.4% during the second quarter. Earnest Partners LLC now owns 444,654 shares of the technology company’s stock worth $113,649,000 after purchasing an additional 10,406 shares during the last quarter. AQR Capital Management LLC increased its position in Littelfuse by 86.6% during the second quarter. AQR Capital Management LLC now owns 19,617 shares of the technology company’s stock worth $5,014,000 after purchasing an additional 9,104 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Squarepoint Ops LLC raised its stake in Littelfuse by 41.4% during the second quarter. Squarepoint Ops LLC now owns 2,252 shares of the technology company’s stock worth $576,000 after purchasing an additional 659 shares during the period. 96.14% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

A number of equities research analysts have recently issued reports on the stock. Baird R W upgraded shares of Littelfuse from a “hold” rating to a “strong-buy” rating in a research report on Friday, May 17th. TD Cowen lifted their price objective on Littelfuse from $250.00 to $260.00 and gave the stock a “hold” rating in a report on Thursday, August 1st. Robert W. Baird raised Littelfuse from a “neutral” rating to an “outperform” rating and upped their target price for the company from $270.00 to $300.00 in a report on Friday, May 17th. Stifel Nicolaus upgraded Littelfuse from a “hold” rating to a “buy” rating and raised their price target for the company from $270.00 to $280.00 in a research report on Tuesday, August 13th. Finally, Benchmark reiterated a “hold” rating on shares of Littelfuse in a research report on Thursday, May 2nd. Four research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, two have assigned a buy rating and one has assigned a strong buy rating to the stock. Based on data from MarketBeat, the stock has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus target price of $275.00.

Littelfuse Price Performance

Shares of NASDAQ LFUS traded down $3.99 during trading on Friday, reaching $256.78. The company had a trading volume of 148,462 shares, compared to its average volume of 136,334. The company has a current ratio of 3.50, a quick ratio of 2.44 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.32. Littelfuse has a twelve month low of $212.80 and a twelve month high of $275.58. The stock has a 50-day moving average price of $256.26 and a two-hundred day moving average price of $247.05. The stock has a market capitalization of $6.36 billion, a PE ratio of 29.41, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 2.58 and a beta of 1.29.

Littelfuse (NASDAQ:LFUS) last announced its earnings results on Tuesday, July 30th. The technology company reported $1.97 earnings per share for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $1.75 by $0.22. Littelfuse had a net margin of 8.71% and a return on equity of 8.91%. The firm had revenue of $558.49 million during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $540.35 million. During the same quarter in the previous year, the company posted $3.12 EPS. The firm’s revenue for the quarter was down 8.7% on a year-over-year basis. As a group, sell-side analysts predict that Littelfuse will post 8.37 earnings per share for the current year.

Littelfuse Increases Dividend

The company also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Thursday, September 5th. Shareholders of record on Thursday, August 22nd will be paid a $0.70 dividend. This is a boost from Littelfuse’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.65. This represents a $2.80 annualized dividend and a yield of 1.09%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Thursday, August 22nd. Littelfuse’s payout ratio is presently 32.07%.

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.