Louisiana State Employees Retirement System Raises Position in Knowles Co. (NYSE:KN)

Louisiana State Employees Retirement System lifted its stake in shares of Knowles Co. (NYSE:KN) by 2.5% during the second quarter, according to its most recent disclosure with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The firm owned 45,200 shares of the communications equipment provider’s stock after acquiring an additional 1,100 shares during the quarter. Louisiana State Employees Retirement System owned 0.05% of Knowles worth $780,000 as of its most recent filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

Several other hedge funds have also modified their holdings of KN. GAMMA Investing LLC acquired a new position in Knowles during the 4th quarter worth approximately $25,000. Parallel Advisors LLC lifted its position in shares of Knowles by 217.0% during the 4th quarter. Parallel Advisors LLC now owns 2,311 shares of the communications equipment provider’s stock worth $41,000 after purchasing an additional 1,582 shares during the last quarter. CWM LLC grew its stake in shares of Knowles by 38.0% during the second quarter. CWM LLC now owns 3,036 shares of the communications equipment provider’s stock worth $52,000 after purchasing an additional 836 shares in the last quarter. EntryPoint Capital LLC purchased a new position in Knowles in the first quarter valued at $135,000. Finally, Commerce Bank acquired a new stake in Knowles in the fourth quarter valued at $181,000. 96.35% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

Insider Activity

In other Knowles news, CFO John S. Anderson sold 10,444 shares of Knowles stock in a transaction on Friday, August 23rd. The shares were sold at an average price of $18.50, for a total value of $193,214.00. Following the transaction, the chief financial officer now directly owns 211,200 shares in the company, valued at $3,907,200. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which is available at the SEC website. Corporate insiders own 2.65% of the company’s stock.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

Separately, Susquehanna increased their price objective on Knowles from $15.00 to $20.00 and gave the company a “neutral” rating in a report on Wednesday, July 17th.

Knowles Price Performance

Shares of KN opened at $18.48 on Friday. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.28, a current ratio of 2.36 and a quick ratio of 1.55. Knowles Co. has a 1-year low of $12.78 and a 1-year high of $19.73. The stock has a market cap of $1.66 billion, a PE ratio of 20.99 and a beta of 1.42. The firm has a fifty day moving average price of $17.76 and a 200 day moving average price of $16.95.

Knowles (NYSE:KN) last posted its earnings results on Wednesday, July 31st. The communications equipment provider reported $0.02 earnings per share for the quarter, missing the consensus estimate of $0.18 by ($0.16). The firm had revenue of $204.70 million during the quarter. Knowles had a negative net margin of 24.36% and a positive return on equity of 5.39%.

About Knowles

Knowles Corporation offers capacitors, radio frequency (RF) filtering products, balanced armature speakers, micro-acoustic microphones, and audio solutions in Asia, the United States, Europe, other Americas, and internationally. It operates through three segments: Precision Devices (PD); Medtech & Specialty Audio (MSA); and Consumer MEMS Microphones (CMM).