Intech Investment Management LLC Buys Shares of 15,965 Veeco Instruments Inc. (NASDAQ:VECO)

Intech Investment Management LLC purchased a new position in Veeco Instruments Inc. (NASDAQ:VECO) in the third quarter, according to the company in its most recent disclosure with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). The firm purchased 15,965 shares of the semiconductor company’s stock, valued at approximately $529,000.

Other institutional investors have also recently made changes to their positions in the company. Segall Bryant & Hamill LLC increased its holdings in Veeco Instruments by 165.0% in the third quarter. Segall Bryant & Hamill LLC now owns 370,917 shares of the semiconductor company’s stock valued at $12,288,000 after buying an additional 230,971 shares in the last quarter. Avior Wealth Management LLC boosted its position in Veeco Instruments by 34.2% during the third quarter. Avior Wealth Management LLC now owns 8,754 shares of the semiconductor company’s stock worth $290,000 after acquiring an additional 2,231 shares during the last quarter. B. Metzler seel. Sohn & Co. Holding AG acquired a new position in Veeco Instruments during the third quarter worth about $1,368,000. Quest Partners LLC boosted its position in Veeco Instruments by 47.0% during the third quarter. Quest Partners LLC now owns 8,922 shares of the semiconductor company’s stock worth $296,000 after acquiring an additional 2,853 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Natixis Advisors LLC boosted its position in Veeco Instruments by 95.8% during the third quarter. Natixis Advisors LLC now owns 32,732 shares of the semiconductor company’s stock worth $1,084,000 after acquiring an additional 16,012 shares during the last quarter. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 98.46% of the company’s stock.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

VECO has been the topic of several recent analyst reports. Oppenheimer decreased their price objective on shares of Veeco Instruments from $45.00 to $40.00 and set an “outperform” rating on the stock in a report on Thursday, November 7th. Benchmark dropped their target price on shares of Veeco Instruments from $42.00 to $38.00 and set a “buy” rating on the stock in a research report on Thursday, November 7th. The Goldman Sachs Group reduced their target price on shares of Veeco Instruments from $35.00 to $30.00 and set a “neutral” rating for the company in a research note on Thursday, November 7th. Needham & Company LLC reiterated a “buy” rating and issued a $55.00 price objective on shares of Veeco Instruments in a research note on Wednesday, August 7th. Finally, StockNews.com cut shares of Veeco Instruments from a “hold” rating to a “sell” rating in a research report on Thursday. One investment analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, three have given a hold rating and four have issued a buy rating to the company’s stock. Based on data from MarketBeat, the stock presently has an average rating of “Hold” and an average target price of $42.14.

Veeco Instruments Trading Up 0.9 %

Shares of VECO stock opened at $27.87 on Monday. The stock has a market cap of $1.58 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 20.64 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. Veeco Instruments Inc. has a fifty-two week low of $25.52 and a fifty-two week high of $49.25. The firm’s 50 day moving average price is $29.91 and its two-hundred day moving average price is $36.47.

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

Insider Transactions 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 transaction, 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 transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which is available at this hyperlink. Over the last three months, insiders have sold 7,500 shares of company stock valued at $225,850. Corporate insiders own 2.40% 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.