Seven Eight Capital LP Increases Holdings in National Instruments Co. (NASDAQ:NATI)

Seven Eight Capital LP grew its holdings in shares of National Instruments Co. (NASDAQ:NATI) by 83.2% in the first quarter, according to its most recent filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). The fund owned 13,227 shares of the technology company’s stock after buying an additional 6,007 shares during the period. Seven Eight Capital LP’s holdings in National Instruments were worth $693,000 as of its most recent filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).

A number of other institutional investors also recently bought and sold shares of the business. Renaissance Technologies LLC purchased a new stake in National Instruments during the 1st quarter worth about $26,182,000. GABELLI & Co INVESTMENT ADVISERS INC. purchased a new stake in shares of National Instruments in the 1st quarter valued at about $5,752,000. Gabelli Funds LLC purchased a new stake in shares of National Instruments in the 1st quarter valued at about $7,809,000. Gamco Investors INC. ET AL purchased a new stake in shares of National Instruments in the 1st quarter valued at about $514,000. Finally, MML Investors Services LLC purchased a new stake in shares of National Instruments in the 1st quarter valued at about $389,000. 80.40% of the stock is owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

Wall Street Analyst Weigh In

Separately, StockNews.com started coverage on National Instruments in a report on Sunday. They issued a “buy” rating for the company. Six investment analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and two have given a buy rating to the company’s stock. Based on data from MarketBeat, the stock currently has an average rating of “Hold” and an average price target of $52.57.

National Instruments Stock Down 0.2 %

NATI opened at $59.70 on Monday. The business has a 50 day moving average price of $58.47 and a two-hundred day moving average price of $56.46. The company has a quick ratio of 1.54, a current ratio of 2.49 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.46. The company has a market cap of $7.93 billion, a PE ratio of 44.22 and a beta of 1.15. National Instruments Co. has a 52 week low of $34.97 and a 52 week high of $59.98.

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

National Instruments Dividend Announcement

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

National Instruments 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.