Loomis Sayles & Co. L P Increases Position in Veeco Instruments Inc. (NASDAQ:VECO)

Loomis Sayles & Co. L P lifted its position in shares of Veeco Instruments Inc. (NASDAQ:VECO) by 40.5% during the third quarter, according to the company in its most recent filing with the SEC. The institutional investor owned 751,003 shares of the semiconductor company’s stock after buying an additional 216,616 shares during the quarter. Loomis Sayles & Co. L P owned approximately 1.32% of Veeco Instruments worth $24,880,000 at the end of the most recent quarter.

Several other hedge funds also recently bought and sold shares of VECO. Vanguard Group Inc. lifted its position in shares of Veeco Instruments by 5.8% in the first quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 7,131,073 shares of the semiconductor company’s stock valued at $250,800,000 after acquiring an additional 391,346 shares in the last quarter. Driehaus Capital Management LLC raised its stake in Veeco Instruments by 119.3% during the 2nd quarter. Driehaus Capital Management LLC now owns 1,458,288 shares of the semiconductor company’s stock valued at $68,117,000 after purchasing an additional 793,429 shares during the period. Westfield Capital Management Co. LP raised its stake in Veeco Instruments by 37.3% during the 3rd quarter. Westfield Capital Management Co. LP now owns 1,175,759 shares of the semiconductor company’s stock valued at $38,953,000 after purchasing an additional 319,451 shares during the period. Fisher Asset Management LLC lifted its holdings in Veeco Instruments by 23.6% in the 3rd quarter. Fisher Asset Management LLC now owns 969,694 shares of the semiconductor company’s stock worth $32,126,000 after purchasing an additional 185,228 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Baillie Gifford & Co. boosted its stake in Veeco Instruments by 32.2% in the 3rd quarter. Baillie Gifford & Co. now owns 631,011 shares of the semiconductor company’s stock worth $20,905,000 after purchasing an additional 153,754 shares during the period. Institutional investors own 98.46% of the company’s stock.

Insider Buying and Selling at Veeco Instruments

In other news, CFO John P. Kiernan sold 2,500 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction on Thursday, October 10th. The shares were sold at an average price of $32.63, for a total transaction of $81,575.00. Following the completion of the sale, the chief financial officer now directly owns 82,642 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $2,696,608.46. The trade was a 2.94 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which can be accessed through this link. Insiders have sold 7,500 shares of company stock valued at $225,850 in the last quarter. 2.20% of the stock is owned by insiders.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

Several equities analysts have recently commented on VECO shares. Benchmark lowered their target price on shares of Veeco Instruments from $42.00 to $38.00 and set a “buy” rating on the stock in a report on Thursday, November 7th. Needham & Company LLC reiterated a “buy” rating and set a $55.00 target price on shares of Veeco Instruments in a research report on Wednesday, August 7th. The Goldman Sachs Group reduced their price target on shares of Veeco Instruments from $35.00 to $30.00 and set a “neutral” rating on the stock in a research report on Thursday, November 7th. StockNews.com upgraded shares of Veeco Instruments from a “sell” rating to a “hold” rating in a research report on Monday, November 11th. Finally, Northland Securities reduced their target price on shares of Veeco Instruments from $53.00 to $47.00 and set an “outperform” rating on the stock in a report on Wednesday, August 7th. Four analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and four have assigned a buy rating to the company’s stock. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, Veeco Instruments has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $42.14.

Veeco Instruments Trading Down 3.0 %

VECO stock opened at $27.13 on Wednesday. Veeco Instruments Inc. has a twelve month low of $25.52 and a twelve month high of $49.25. The stock has a market capitalization of $1.54 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 20.10 and a beta of 1.17. The company has a quick ratio of 2.41, a current ratio of 3.54 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.33. The firm’s fifty day simple moving average is $30.20 and its two-hundred day simple moving average is $36.75.

Veeco Instruments (NASDAQ:VECO) last announced its earnings results on Wednesday, November 6th. The semiconductor company reported $0.46 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $0.45 by $0.01. Veeco Instruments had a return on equity of 10.92% and a net margin of 11.34%. The business had revenue of $184.80 million during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $180.57 million. During the same quarter in the previous year, the business earned $0.41 earnings per share. The company’s revenue for the quarter was up 4.2% compared to the same quarter last year. As a group, analysts anticipate that Veeco Instruments Inc. will post 1.12 earnings per share for the current year.

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.