Short Interest in Littelfuse, Inc. (NASDAQ:LFUS) Grows By 6.0%

Littelfuse, Inc. (NASDAQ:LFUS) was the recipient of a significant increase in short interest in the month of October. As of October 31st, there was short interest totalling 235,100 shares, an increase of 6.0% from the October 15th total of 221,700 shares. Based on an average daily volume of 91,400 shares, the days-to-cover ratio is presently 2.6 days. Currently, 1.0% of the shares of the company are sold short.

Littelfuse Stock Down 0.1 %

Shares of NASDAQ LFUS 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 has a market cap of $5.93 billion, a PE ratio of 19.25, a PEG ratio of 1.68 and a beta of 1.32. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.36, a quick ratio of 2.02 and a current ratio of 3.03. The business has a fifty day moving average of $236.83 and a two-hundred day moving average of $260.12.

Littelfuse (NASDAQ:LFUS) last announced its earnings results on Tuesday, October 31st. The technology company reported $2.97 earnings per share for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $2.61 by $0.36. Littelfuse had a return on equity of 14.12% and a net margin of 12.69%. The company had revenue of $607.07 million during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $585.80 million. As a group, equities research analysts expect that Littelfuse will post 11.82 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Littelfuse Announces Dividend

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

Insider Buying and Selling

In related 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 value of $426,474.00. Following the completion of the transaction, the senior vice president now directly owns 5,530 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $1,310,222.90. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which can be accessed through the SEC website. 2.70% of the stock is owned by company insiders.

Institutional Trading of Littelfuse

A number of hedge funds and other institutional investors have recently made changes to their positions in the business. Cambridge Investment Research Advisors Inc. increased its position in Littelfuse by 8.5% in the first quarter. Cambridge Investment Research Advisors Inc. now owns 866 shares of the technology company’s stock worth $216,000 after purchasing an additional 68 shares during the period. Citigroup Inc. increased its position in Littelfuse by 2.5% in the first quarter. Citigroup Inc. now owns 3,595 shares of the technology company’s stock worth $897,000 after purchasing an additional 89 shares during the period. Bank of Montreal Can increased its position in Littelfuse by 6.0% in the first quarter. Bank of Montreal Can now owns 3,711 shares of the technology company’s stock worth $975,000 after purchasing an additional 211 shares during the period. Commonwealth of Pennsylvania Public School Empls Retrmt SYS increased its position in Littelfuse by 10.5% in the first quarter. Commonwealth of Pennsylvania Public School Empls Retrmt SYS now owns 9,027 shares of the technology company’s stock worth $2,251,000 after purchasing an additional 860 shares during the period. Finally, BlackRock Inc. increased its position in Littelfuse by 1.8% in the first quarter. BlackRock Inc. now owns 2,040,384 shares of the technology company’s stock worth $508,893,000 after purchasing an additional 37,011 shares during the period. 93.39% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

Analyst Ratings Changes

A number of brokerages have issued reports on LFUS. Robert W. Baird cut their price objective on Littelfuse from $300.00 to $290.00 in a report on Thursday, October 12th. StockNews.com began coverage on Littelfuse in a report on Thursday, October 5th. They set a “hold” rating for the company.

Littelfuse Company Profile

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.