Teradyne, Inc. (NASDAQ:TER) Sees Large Growth in Short Interest

Teradyne, Inc. (NASDAQ:TER) saw a significant increase in short interest in February. As of February 28th, there was short interest totalling 6,750,000 shares, an increase of 18.2% from the February 13th total of 5,710,000 shares. Approximately 4.3% of the shares of the stock are short sold. Based on an average trading volume of 2,830,000 shares, the short-interest ratio is currently 2.4 days.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

TER has been the subject of a number of research reports. TD Cowen cut their price target on shares of Teradyne from $135.00 to $110.00 and set a “buy” rating for the company in a research note on Wednesday, March 12th. Vertical Research started coverage on shares of Teradyne in a research note on Friday, March 7th. They issued a “buy” rating and a $135.00 price objective for the company. Robert W. Baird cut their price objective on shares of Teradyne from $140.00 to $110.00 and set an “outperform” rating for the company in a research note on Thursday, March 13th. Bank of America cut their price objective on shares of Teradyne from $100.00 to $85.00 and set an “underperform” rating for the company in a research note on Wednesday, March 12th. Finally, Cantor Fitzgerald cut their price objective on shares of Teradyne from $150.00 to $110.00 and set an “overweight” rating for the company in a research note on Wednesday, March 12th. Two investment analysts have rated the stock with a sell rating, three have assigned a hold rating, twelve have issued a buy rating and one has given a strong buy rating to the stock. Based on data from MarketBeat, Teradyne currently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus target price of $121.44.

Teradyne Trading Down 1.4 %

Shares of NASDAQ TER opened at $88.87 on Wednesday. Teradyne has a 12 month low of $82.98 and a 12 month high of $163.21. The firm has a market capitalization of $14.37 billion, a PE ratio of 26.69, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 2.83 and a beta of 1.46. The firm has a fifty day simple moving average of $115.61 and a two-hundred day simple moving average of $119.55.

Teradyne (NASDAQ:TER) last issued its quarterly earnings results on Wednesday, January 29th. The company reported $0.95 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $0.91 by $0.04. Teradyne had a net margin of 19.23% and a return on equity of 19.08%. On average, sell-side analysts predict that Teradyne will post 3.88 earnings per share for the current year.

Teradyne Dividend Announcement

The company also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Friday, March 14th. Investors of record on Friday, February 14th were given a dividend of $0.12 per share. This represents a $0.48 annualized dividend and a yield of 0.54%. The ex-dividend date was Friday, February 14th. Teradyne’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is 14.41%.

Insider Activity at Teradyne

In other Teradyne news, CEO Gregory Stephen Smith sold 3,080 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Friday, January 3rd. The shares were sold at an average price of $130.00, for a total value of $400,400.00. Following the completion of the transaction, the chief executive officer now 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 transaction was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available at this hyperlink. Also, CFO Sanjay Mehta sold 614 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Thursday, January 30th. The stock was sold at an average price of $102.00, for a total transaction of $62,628.00. Following the completion of the transaction, the chief financial officer now directly owns 30,446 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $3,105,492. This represents a 1.98 % decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Over the last 90 days, insiders sold 8,479 shares of company stock valued at $1,013,134. Corporate insiders own 0.36% of the company’s stock.

Institutional Trading of Teradyne

Several institutional investors have recently bought and sold shares of TER. Vanguard Group Inc. lifted its stake in shares of Teradyne by 0.5% in the 4th quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 20,405,899 shares of the company’s stock worth $2,569,511,000 after purchasing an additional 92,428 shares during the period. State Street Corp lifted its stake in shares of Teradyne by 5.4% in 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 period. Van ECK Associates Corp lifted its stake in shares of Teradyne by 59.9% in the 4th quarter. Van ECK Associates Corp now owns 4,928,143 shares of the company’s stock worth $620,552,000 after purchasing an additional 1,846,079 shares during the period. Ameriprise Financial Inc. lifted its stake in shares of Teradyne by 28.3% in the 4th quarter. Ameriprise Financial Inc. now owns 4,828,689 shares of the company’s stock worth $608,025,000 after purchasing an additional 1,065,474 shares during the period. Finally, Geode Capital Management LLC lifted its stake in shares of Teradyne by 2.4% in the 4th quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC now owns 4,105,505 shares of the company’s stock worth $515,665,000 after purchasing an additional 94,374 shares during the period. 99.77% of the stock is owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

Teradyne Company Profile

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.