Jefferies Financial Group Inc. Buys New Stake in Teradyne, Inc. (NASDAQ:TER)

Jefferies Financial Group Inc. bought a new stake in Teradyne, Inc. (NASDAQ:TER) in the 4th quarter, according to its most recent filing with the SEC. The fund bought 14,190 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $1,787,000.

Several other large investors have also recently made changes to their positions in TER. Norges Bank acquired a new position in shares of Teradyne in the 4th quarter valued at $270,989,000. Van ECK Associates Corp raised its position in Teradyne by 59.9% during the fourth quarter. Van ECK Associates Corp now owns 4,928,143 shares of the company’s stock worth $620,552,000 after acquiring an additional 1,846,079 shares during the period. Raymond James Financial Inc. acquired a new position in Teradyne during the fourth quarter worth $160,087,000. Ameriprise Financial Inc. raised its position in Teradyne by 28.3% during the fourth quarter. Ameriprise Financial Inc. now owns 4,828,689 shares of the company’s stock worth $608,025,000 after acquiring an additional 1,065,474 shares during the period. Finally, Balyasny Asset Management L.P. raised its position in Teradyne by 142.6% during the fourth quarter. Balyasny Asset Management L.P. now owns 1,522,537 shares of the company’s stock worth $191,718,000 after acquiring an additional 894,849 shares during the period. 99.77% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

Teradyne Stock Down 0.7%

Shares of NASDAQ TER opened at $84.27 on Thursday. The firm has a 50-day simple moving average of $79.49 and a 200-day simple moving average of $104.75. The stock has a market capitalization of $13.52 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 25.31, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 2.83 and a beta of 1.70. Teradyne, Inc. has a 52 week low of $65.77 and a 52 week high of $163.21.

Teradyne (NASDAQ:TER) last announced its quarterly earnings data on Monday, April 28th. The company reported $0.75 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $0.61 by $0.14. Teradyne had a net margin of 19.23% and a return on equity of 19.08%. The firm had revenue of $685.70 million during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $680.54 million. During the same quarter in the prior year, the firm posted $0.51 earnings per share. Teradyne’s quarterly revenue was up 14.3% on a year-over-year basis. As a group, equities research analysts expect that Teradyne, Inc. will post 3.88 EPS for the current year.

Teradyne announced that its Board of Directors has initiated a share buyback plan on Monday, April 28th that permits the company to repurchase $1.00 billion in shares. This repurchase authorization permits the company to buy up to 8.1% of its shares through open market purchases. Shares repurchase plans are usually a sign that the company’s management believes its stock is undervalued.

Teradyne Announces Dividend

The company also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Friday, June 13th. Investors of record on Thursday, May 22nd will be issued a $0.12 dividend. This represents a $0.48 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 0.57%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Thursday, May 22nd. Teradyne’s dividend payout ratio is currently 13.56%.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

A number of equities analysts have weighed in on the stock. Robert W. Baird reduced their price objective on shares of Teradyne from $140.00 to $110.00 and set an “outperform” rating for the company in a research report on Thursday, March 13th. Stifel Nicolaus reduced their price objective on shares of Teradyne from $125.00 to $110.00 and set a “hold” rating for the company in a research report on Wednesday, March 12th. UBS Group set a $130.00 price objective on shares of Teradyne and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a research report on Wednesday, March 12th. Morgan Stanley reduced their price objective on shares of Teradyne from $81.00 to $69.00 and set an “underweight” rating for the company in a research report on Wednesday, April 16th. Finally, JPMorgan Chase & Co. reduced their price objective on shares of Teradyne from $120.00 to $92.00 and set an “overweight” rating for the company in a research report on Thursday, April 17th. Two analysts have rated the stock with a sell rating, four have assigned a hold rating, eleven have issued a buy rating and one has issued a strong buy rating to the stock. According to MarketBeat.com, the company currently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus target price of $117.56.

Teradyne Profile

Teradyne, Inc designs, develops, manufactures, and sells automated test systems and robotics products worldwide. It operates through four segments; Semiconductor Test, System Test, Robotics, and Wireless Test. The Semiconductor Test segment offers products and services for wafer level and device package testing of semiconductor devices in automotive, industrial, communications, consumer, smartphones, cloud, computer and electronic game, and other applications.