Fifth Third Bancorp Increases Position in Littelfuse, Inc. (NASDAQ:LFUS)

Fifth Third Bancorp boosted its holdings in shares of Littelfuse, Inc. (NASDAQ:LFUS) by 30.5% in the 1st quarter, according to the company in its most recent 13F filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The institutional investor owned 325 shares of the technology company’s stock after acquiring an additional 76 shares during the period. Fifth Third Bancorp’s holdings in Littelfuse were worth $64,000 at the end of the most recent reporting period.

Several other hedge funds have also made changes to their positions in the company. Vanguard Group Inc. grew its stake in shares of Littelfuse by 1.5% in the 4th quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 2,807,162 shares of the technology company’s stock valued at $661,508,000 after buying an additional 40,423 shares during the period. Neuberger Berman Group LLC grew its stake in shares of Littelfuse by 1.2% in the 4th quarter. Neuberger Berman Group LLC now owns 1,047,025 shares of the technology company’s stock valued at $246,732,000 after buying an additional 11,958 shares during the period. T. Rowe Price Investment Management Inc. grew its stake in shares of Littelfuse by 7.9% in the 4th quarter. T. Rowe Price Investment Management Inc. now owns 763,396 shares of the technology company’s stock valued at $179,895,000 after buying an additional 55,835 shares during the period. Norges Bank purchased a new stake in shares of Littelfuse in the 4th quarter valued at approximately $131,579,000. Finally, Victory Capital Management Inc. grew its stake in shares of Littelfuse by 0.4% in the 4th quarter. Victory Capital Management Inc. now owns 513,679 shares of the technology company’s stock valued at $121,048,000 after buying an additional 2,056 shares during the period. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 96.14% of the company’s stock.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

Several research firms have recently weighed in on LFUS. Baird R W cut shares of Littelfuse from a “strong-buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a research note on Tuesday, April 15th. Robert W. Baird increased their price target on shares of Littelfuse from $182.00 to $194.00 and gave the company a “neutral” rating in a research note on Thursday, May 1st. Wall Street Zen lowered shares of Littelfuse from a “buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a report on Friday, June 6th. Benchmark restated a “hold” rating on shares of Littelfuse in a report on Wednesday, May 28th. Finally, Oppenheimer decreased their price objective on shares of Littelfuse from $310.00 to $275.00 and set an “outperform” rating on the stock in a report on Thursday, May 1st. Five equities research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and two have given a buy rating to the company’s stock. According to MarketBeat, the company has a consensus rating of “Hold” and a consensus price target of $252.25.

Insiders Place Their Bets

In other Littelfuse news, SVP Deepak Nayar sold 1,477 shares of the stock in a transaction that occurred on Monday, May 5th. The shares were sold at an average price of $197.50, for a total transaction of $291,707.50. Following the sale, the senior vice president now directly owns 5,975 shares in the company, valued at $1,180,062.50. This represents a 19.82% decrease in their position. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available through this link. 2.50% of the stock is owned by company insiders.

Littelfuse Stock Performance

Shares of LFUS stock opened at $219.17 on Friday. The firm’s 50 day moving average price is $199.31 and its 200-day moving average price is $215.88. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.32, a quick ratio of 2.75 and a current ratio of 3.88. Littelfuse, Inc. has a one year low of $142.10 and a one year high of $275.58. The firm has a market cap of $5.42 billion, a P/E ratio of 50.73, a P/E/G ratio of 1.99 and a beta of 1.38.

Littelfuse (NASDAQ:LFUS) last issued its quarterly earnings data on Tuesday, April 29th. The technology company reported $2.19 EPS for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $1.82 by $0.37. The firm had revenue of $554.31 million for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $537.60 million. Littelfuse had a net margin of 4.89% and a return on equity of 9.00%. The business’s revenue for the quarter was up 3.5% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same period in the prior year, the business posted $1.76 EPS. As a group, equities research analysts predict that Littelfuse, Inc. will post 9.49 EPS for the current year.

Littelfuse Dividend Announcement

The firm also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Thursday, June 5th. Shareholders of record on Thursday, May 22nd were issued a dividend of $0.70 per share. The ex-dividend date was Thursday, May 22nd. This represents a $2.80 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 1.28%. Littelfuse’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is presently 64.81%.

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.