American Century Companies Inc. Has $27.33 Million Holdings in National Instruments Co. (NASDAQ:NATI)

American Century Companies Inc. lessened its stake in National Instruments Co. (NASDAQ:NATI) by 27.6% in the first quarter, according to the company in its most recent disclosure with the Securities & Exchange Commission. The institutional investor owned 522,223 shares of the technology company’s stock after selling 198,604 shares during the quarter. American Century Companies Inc. owned about 0.40% of National Instruments worth $27,334,000 at the end of the most recent reporting period.

A number of other hedge funds and other institutional investors have also bought and sold shares of NATI. Morgan Stanley raised its stake in National Instruments by 219.5% in the fourth quarter. Morgan Stanley now owns 3,247,853 shares of the technology company’s stock valued at $119,846,000 after purchasing an additional 2,231,458 shares in the last quarter. Segantii Capital Management Ltd acquired a new position in National Instruments in the first quarter valued at about $92,766,000. Norges Bank acquired a new position in National Instruments in the fourth quarter valued at about $38,111,000. Millennium Management LLC grew its position in National Instruments by 47.5% in the fourth quarter. Millennium Management LLC now owns 1,475,488 shares of the technology company’s stock valued at $54,446,000 after acquiring an additional 474,870 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Balyasny Asset Management LLC bought a new position in National Instruments in the third quarter valued at about $11,794,000. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 80.40% of the company’s stock.

National Instruments Stock Performance

Shares of NATI stock opened at $59.71 on Wednesday. The stock has a market capitalization of $7.93 billion, a PE ratio of 44.23 and a beta of 1.17. National Instruments Co. has a one year low of $34.97 and a one year high of $59.98. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.46, a current ratio of 2.49 and a quick ratio of 1.54. The business’s 50 day simple moving average is $58.09 and its 200 day simple moving average is $56.04.

National Instruments (NASDAQ:NATI) last issued its quarterly earnings data on Thursday, July 27th. The technology company reported $0.43 EPS for the quarter, missing the consensus estimate of $0.47 by ($0.04). The company had revenue of $416.80 million during the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $441.49 million. National Instruments had a return on equity of 22.27% and a net margin of 10.37%. As a group, research analysts forecast that National Instruments Co. will post 1.74 earnings per share for the current year.

National Instruments Announces Dividend

The company also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Tuesday, August 29th. Shareholders of record on Tuesday, August 8th were given a $0.28 dividend. This represents a $1.12 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 1.88%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Monday, August 7th. National Instruments’s dividend payout ratio is currently 82.96%.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

Separately, StockNews.com started coverage on National Instruments in a research report on Friday, August 25th. They issued a “buy” rating on the stock. Six research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and two have issued a buy rating to the company’s stock. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, the stock presently has a consensus rating of “Hold” and an average price target of $52.57.

National Instruments Company Profile

National Instruments Corporation provides a software-centric platform to engineers and scientists worldwide. Its programming environments software includes NI LabVIEW, a graphical software platform to visualize hardware configuration, measurement data, and debugging; NI LabWindows/CVI, an ANSI C integrated development environment and engineering toolbox; and NI Measurement Studio, a suite of .NET tools for building engineering applications in Microsoft Visual Studio.