Yousif Capital Management LLC Buys 953 Shares of Veeco Instruments Inc. $VECO

Yousif Capital Management LLC lifted its stake in Veeco Instruments Inc. (NASDAQ:VECO) by 4.5% in the second quarter, according to the company in its most recent disclosure with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). The institutional investor owned 22,219 shares of the semiconductor company’s stock after purchasing an additional 953 shares during the period. Yousif Capital Management LLC’s holdings in Veeco Instruments were worth $451,000 at the end of the most recent quarter.

Several other hedge funds and other institutional investors have also made changes to their positions in VECO. GAMMA Investing LLC raised its holdings in Veeco Instruments by 342.6% in the first quarter. GAMMA Investing LLC now owns 8,807 shares of the semiconductor company’s stock worth $177,000 after purchasing an additional 6,817 shares during the period. KBC Group NV lifted its holdings in Veeco Instruments by 75.9% during the first quarter. KBC Group NV now owns 3,672 shares of the semiconductor company’s stock worth $74,000 after acquiring an additional 1,584 shares in the last quarter. Principal Financial Group Inc. lifted its holdings in Veeco Instruments by 4.0% during the first quarter. Principal Financial Group Inc. now owns 341,069 shares of the semiconductor company’s stock worth $6,849,000 after acquiring an additional 13,182 shares in the last quarter. Envestnet Asset Management Inc. grew its stake in Veeco Instruments by 9.8% in the first quarter. Envestnet Asset Management Inc. now owns 68,747 shares of the semiconductor company’s stock valued at $1,380,000 after acquiring an additional 6,145 shares during the period. Finally, MQS Management LLC bought a new stake in shares of Veeco Instruments in the first quarter worth about $319,000. 98.46% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors.

Insider Buying and Selling at Veeco Instruments

In other Veeco Instruments news, CEO William John Miller sold 25,000 shares of the stock in a transaction on Wednesday, October 1st. The shares were sold at an average price of $32.00, for a total value of $800,000.00. Following the completion of the sale, the chief executive officer owned 514,543 shares in the company, valued at $16,465,376. This trade represents a 4.63% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which is available through this link. Also, SVP Adrian Devasahayam sold 3,851 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction dated Thursday, October 2nd. The stock was sold at an average price of $34.00, for a total transaction of $130,934.00. Following the transaction, the senior vice president owned 78,269 shares in the company, valued at $2,661,146. This represents a 4.69% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders have sold 61,911 shares of company stock worth $1,781,550 over the last ninety days. Insiders own 2.40% of the company’s stock.

Analyst Ratings Changes

Several equities analysts have recently weighed in on the company. Needham & Company LLC cut Veeco Instruments from a “buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a report on Friday, October 3rd. Benchmark cut their price target on shares of Veeco Instruments from $31.00 to $28.00 and set a “buy” rating on the stock in a research note on Thursday, August 7th. Northland Capmk cut shares of Veeco Instruments from a “strong-buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a research report on Tuesday, October 7th. Weiss Ratings reaffirmed a “hold (c)” rating on shares of Veeco Instruments in a research note on Wednesday, October 8th. Finally, Northland Securities downgraded Veeco Instruments from an “outperform” rating to a “market perform” rating and set a $30.00 price target on the stock. in a research note on Tuesday, October 7th. Three analysts have rated the stock with a Buy rating and six have given a Hold rating to the company. According to data from MarketBeat, the company currently has an average rating of “Hold” and a consensus target price of $27.71.

Veeco Instruments Price Performance

NASDAQ:VECO opened at $29.62 on Friday. Veeco Instruments Inc. has a 52-week low of $16.92 and a 52-week high of $34.45. The company has a market cap of $1.78 billion, a P/E ratio of 29.04 and a beta of 1.27. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.26, a quick ratio of 3.43 and a current ratio of 5.10. The stock’s 50-day simple moving average is $27.32 and its 200 day simple moving average is $22.75.

Veeco Instruments (NASDAQ:VECO) last posted its quarterly earnings results on Wednesday, August 6th. The semiconductor company reported $0.36 earnings per share for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $0.22 by $0.14. Veeco Instruments had a return on equity of 7.38% and a net margin of 8.65%.The firm had revenue of $166.10 million during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $151.31 million. During the same period last year, the company earned $0.42 earnings per share. The business’s revenue was down 5.6% compared to the same quarter last year. As a group, sell-side analysts forecast that Veeco Instruments Inc. will post 0.76 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Veeco Instruments Profile

Veeco Instruments Inc, together with its subsidiaries, develops, manufactures, sells, and supports semiconductor and thin film process equipment primarily to make electronic devices in the United States, Europe, the Middle East, and Africa, China, Rest of the Asia-Pacific, and internationally. The company offers laser annealing, ion beam deposition and etch, metal organic chemical vapor deposition, single wafer wet processing and surface preparation, molecular beam epitaxy, advanced packaging lithography, atomic layer deposition, and other deposition systems.