Teradyne (NASDAQ:TER) Lowered to “Underweight” Rating by Morgan Stanley

Morgan Stanley cut shares of Teradyne (NASDAQ:TER) from an equal weight rating to an underweight rating in a research report released on Tuesday, Marketbeat Ratings reports. Morgan Stanley currently has $117.00 price target on the stock, down from their prior price target of $121.00.

A number of other analysts have also recently commented on the stock. Stifel Nicolaus lowered their target price on shares of Teradyne from $140.00 to $125.00 and set a “hold” rating for the company in a research note on Friday, October 25th. Northland Securities upgraded shares of Teradyne from a “market perform” rating to an “outperform” rating and lifted their price objective for the stock from $117.00 to $154.00 in a research note on Monday, January 6th. JPMorgan Chase & Co. raised shares of Teradyne from a “neutral” rating to an “overweight” rating and boosted their price objective for the company from $145.00 to $158.00 in a report on Monday, December 16th. Evercore ISI raised their target price on Teradyne from $130.00 to $145.00 and gave the stock an “overweight” rating in a research note on Wednesday, October 9th. Finally, StockNews.com upgraded Teradyne from a “sell” rating to a “hold” rating in a research note on Sunday, October 27th. One research analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, three have assigned a hold rating, ten have issued a buy rating and one has issued a strong buy rating to the stock. According to MarketBeat.com, Teradyne currently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $147.77.

Teradyne Price Performance

TER stock opened at $132.30 on Tuesday. Teradyne has a 1-year low of $92.29 and a 1-year high of $163.21. The business has a 50-day moving average price of $121.85 and a 200 day moving average price of $126.85. The company has a market capitalization of $21.55 billion, a P/E ratio of 42.00, a PEG ratio of 2.30 and a beta of 1.46.

Teradyne (NASDAQ:TER) last issued its quarterly earnings data on Wednesday, October 23rd. The company reported $0.90 earnings per share for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $0.78 by $0.12. Teradyne had a return on equity of 18.56% and a net margin of 18.75%. The company had revenue of $737.30 million for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $716.40 million. During the same quarter last year, the company earned $0.80 earnings per share. The firm’s revenue for the quarter was up 4.8% compared to the same quarter last year. On average, analysts anticipate that Teradyne will post 3.17 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Teradyne announced that its board has authorized a share repurchase program on Monday, November 11th that authorizes the company to buyback $100.00 million in outstanding shares. This buyback authorization authorizes the company to reacquire up to 0.6% of its shares through open market purchases. Shares buyback programs are typically a sign that the company’s management believes its shares are undervalued.

Teradyne Dividend Announcement

The company also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Wednesday, December 18th. Shareholders of record on Monday, November 25th were given a $0.12 dividend. This represents a $0.48 annualized dividend and a yield of 0.36%. The ex-dividend date was Monday, November 25th. Teradyne’s dividend payout ratio is currently 15.24%.

Insiders Place Their Bets

In other Teradyne news, CEO Gregory Stephen Smith sold 3,080 shares of Teradyne stock in a transaction dated Friday, January 3rd. The stock was sold at an average price of $130.00, for a total transaction of $400,400.00. Following the completion of the sale, the chief executive officer now directly owns 74,660 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $9,705,800. The trade was a 3.96 % decrease in their position. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available at this link. 0.18% of the stock is owned by company insiders.

Institutional Inflows and Outflows

Hedge funds have recently modified their holdings of the stock. Assenagon Asset Management S.A. boosted its holdings in shares of Teradyne by 1,767.0% in the fourth quarter. Assenagon Asset Management S.A. now owns 923,068 shares of the company’s stock valued at $116,233,000 after acquiring an additional 873,626 shares during the period. Alkeon Capital Management LLC raised its position in Teradyne by 189.6% in the 3rd quarter. Alkeon Capital Management LLC now owns 1,144,017 shares of the company’s stock valued at $153,218,000 after purchasing an additional 749,003 shares during the last quarter. Holocene Advisors LP acquired a new stake in Teradyne during the 3rd quarter worth $91,129,000. Sumitomo Mitsui Trust Group Inc. grew its position in Teradyne by 18.2% during the 3rd quarter. Sumitomo Mitsui Trust Group Inc. now owns 2,432,722 shares of the company’s stock worth $325,814,000 after purchasing an additional 374,522 shares during the last quarter. Finally, State Street Corp grew its position in Teradyne by 5.4% during the 3rd quarter. State Street Corp now owns 6,880,148 shares of the company’s stock worth $921,458,000 after purchasing an additional 350,002 shares during the last quarter. 99.77% of the stock is owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

About Teradyne

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.