Insider Selling: Veeco Instruments (NASDAQ:VECO) CEO Sells 25,000 Shares of Stock

Veeco Instruments Inc. (NASDAQ:VECO) CEO William John Miller sold 25,000 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction dated Wednesday, October 1st. The stock was sold at an average price of $32.00, for a total transaction of $800,000.00. Following the transaction, the chief executive officer owned 514,543 shares in the company, valued at approximately $16,465,376. This trade represents a 4.63% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is accessible through this hyperlink.

William John Miller also recently made the following trade(s):

• On Tuesday, September 9th, William John Miller sold 25,000 shares of Veeco Instruments stock. The stock was sold at an average price of $25.00, for a total transaction of $625,000.00.

Veeco Instruments Trading Down 4.5%

Shares of Veeco Instruments stock opened at $31.61 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 quick ratio of 3.43, a current ratio of 5.10 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.26. The company’s 50-day simple moving average is $25.37 and its 200-day simple moving average is $21.90. The firm has a market cap of $1.90 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 30.99 and a beta of 1.27.

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

Analysts Set New Price Targets

A number of research firms recently commented on VECO. Needham & Company LLC reissued a “hold” rating on shares of Veeco Instruments in a report on Friday. Benchmark decreased their price objective on shares of Veeco Instruments from $31.00 to $28.00 and set a “buy” rating on the stock in a report on Thursday, August 7th. Finally, Weiss Ratings reissued a “hold (c)” rating on shares of Veeco Instruments in a report on Saturday, September 27th. Three equities research analysts have rated the stock with a Buy rating and four have issued a Hold rating to the company. According to MarketBeat, Veeco Instruments has an average rating of “Hold” and a consensus target price of $27.33.

Institutional Trading of Veeco Instruments

Several institutional investors and hedge funds have recently modified their holdings of VECO. SG Capital Management LLC acquired a new position in shares of Veeco Instruments in the second quarter valued at approximately $16,421,000. Federated Hermes Inc. raised its position in shares of Veeco Instruments by 262.1% in the second quarter. Federated Hermes Inc. now owns 1,068,950 shares of the semiconductor company’s stock valued at $21,721,000 after buying an additional 773,763 shares during the last quarter. Paradigm Capital Management Inc. NY raised its position in shares of Veeco Instruments by 20.0% in the first quarter. Paradigm Capital Management Inc. NY now owns 2,380,000 shares of the semiconductor company’s stock valued at $47,790,000 after buying an additional 397,200 shares during the last quarter. Raymond James Financial Inc. raised its position in shares of Veeco Instruments by 55.8% in the first quarter. Raymond James Financial Inc. now owns 835,539 shares of the semiconductor company’s stock valued at $16,778,000 after buying an additional 299,235 shares during the last quarter. Finally, The Manufacturers Life Insurance Company raised its position in shares of Veeco Instruments by 9.7% in the second quarter. The Manufacturers Life Insurance Company now owns 3,215,031 shares of the semiconductor company’s stock valued at $65,329,000 after buying an additional 284,716 shares during the last quarter. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 98.46% of the company’s stock.

About Veeco Instruments

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.