Point72 Asia Singapore Pte. Ltd. Increases Stock Position in Veeco Instruments Inc. (NASDAQ:VECO)

Point72 Asia Singapore Pte. Ltd. lifted its holdings in Veeco Instruments Inc. (NASDAQ:VECO) by 721.7% in the 3rd quarter, according to its most recent filing with the SEC. The firm owned 5,341 shares of the semiconductor company’s stock after purchasing an additional 4,691 shares during the period. Point72 Asia Singapore Pte. Ltd.’s holdings in Veeco Instruments were worth $177,000 at the end of the most recent quarter.

Several other hedge funds have also recently modified their holdings of VECO. Wasatch Advisors LP lifted its position in shares of Veeco Instruments by 50.3% in the 3rd quarter. Wasatch Advisors LP now owns 2,640,649 shares of the semiconductor company’s stock worth $87,485,000 after purchasing an additional 883,815 shares during the period. Driehaus Capital Management LLC lifted its position in shares of Veeco Instruments by 119.3% in the 2nd quarter. Driehaus Capital Management LLC now owns 1,458,288 shares of the semiconductor company’s stock worth $68,117,000 after purchasing an additional 793,429 shares during the period. The Manufacturers Life Insurance Company lifted its position in shares of Veeco Instruments by 20.1% in the 3rd quarter. The Manufacturers Life Insurance Company now owns 2,216,351 shares of the semiconductor company’s stock worth $73,428,000 after purchasing an additional 371,221 shares during the period. Westfield Capital Management Co. LP lifted its position in shares of Veeco Instruments by 37.3% in the 3rd quarter. Westfield Capital Management Co. LP now owns 1,175,759 shares of the semiconductor company’s stock worth $38,953,000 after purchasing an additional 319,451 shares during the period. Finally, New York State Common Retirement Fund lifted its position in shares of Veeco Instruments by 249.0% in the 3rd quarter. New York State Common Retirement Fund now owns 430,757 shares of the semiconductor company’s stock worth $14,271,000 after purchasing an additional 307,348 shares during the period. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 98.46% of the company’s stock.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

Several brokerages have recently weighed in on VECO. The Goldman Sachs Group lowered their price target on shares of Veeco Instruments from $35.00 to $30.00 and set a “neutral” rating for the company in a research report on Thursday, November 7th. Oppenheimer decreased their target price on shares of Veeco Instruments from $45.00 to $40.00 and set an “outperform” rating for the company in a research report on Thursday, November 7th. Benchmark decreased their target price on shares of Veeco Instruments from $42.00 to $38.00 and set a “buy” rating for the company in a research report on Thursday, November 7th. Northland Securities decreased their target price on shares of Veeco Instruments from $53.00 to $47.00 and set an “outperform” rating for the company in a research report on Wednesday, August 7th. Finally, Needham & Company LLC reissued a “buy” rating and set a $55.00 target price on shares of Veeco Instruments in a research report on Wednesday, August 7th. One investment analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, three have issued a hold rating and four have assigned a buy rating to the company’s stock. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, the company currently has a consensus rating of “Hold” and an average price target of $42.14.

Insider Transactions at Veeco Instruments

In other news, CFO John P. Kiernan sold 2,500 shares of the stock in a transaction on Thursday, October 10th. The shares were sold at an average price of $32.63, for a total value of $81,575.00. Following the sale, the chief financial officer now owns 82,642 shares in the company, valued at $2,696,608.46. This represents a 2.94 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available through the SEC website. Insiders have sold 7,500 shares of company stock worth $225,850 over the last 90 days. 2.40% of the stock is currently owned by company insiders.

Veeco Instruments Trading Down 0.1 %

Shares of Veeco Instruments stock opened at $29.00 on Thursday. The company has a current ratio of 3.54, a quick ratio of 2.41 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.33. Veeco Instruments Inc. has a 12-month low of $25.52 and a 12-month high of $49.25. The firm has a market capitalization of $1.65 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 21.66 and a beta of 1.15. The firm’s 50 day simple moving average is $29.79 and its two-hundred day simple moving average is $36.28.

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

Veeco Instruments Profile

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.