Teradyne (NASDAQ:TER) Cut to “Underweight” at Morgan Stanley

Morgan Stanley cut shares of Teradyne (NASDAQ:TER) from an equal weight rating to an underweight rating in a research note issued to investors on Tuesday, Marketbeat.com reports. They currently have $117.00 price target on the stock, down from their prior price target of $121.00.

Several other research analysts have also recently weighed in on the company. Robert W. Baird decreased their target price on Teradyne from $140.00 to $133.00 and set an “outperform” rating for the company in a research note on Friday, October 25th. StockNews.com raised shares of Teradyne from a “sell” rating to a “hold” rating in a research note on Sunday, October 27th. Craig Hallum cut their target price on shares of Teradyne from $124.00 to $111.00 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 target for the stock from $117.00 to $154.00 in a research report on Monday, January 6th. Finally, Stifel Nicolaus dropped their price target on Teradyne from $140.00 to $125.00 and set a “hold” rating on the stock in a report on Friday, October 25th. 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 given a strong buy rating to the company’s stock. Based on data from MarketBeat, Teradyne currently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $149.31.

Teradyne Stock Down 2.2 %

Shares of NASDAQ:TER opened at $131.83 on Tuesday. Teradyne has a fifty-two week low of $92.29 and a fifty-two week high of $163.21. The company has a market cap of $21.47 billion, a PE ratio of 41.85, a P/E/G ratio of 2.21 and a beta of 1.46. The company’s 50-day moving average price is $123.40 and its 200 day moving average price is $126.81.

Teradyne (NASDAQ:TER) last announced its quarterly earnings results on Wednesday, October 23rd. The company reported $0.90 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, topping 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 during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $716.40 million. During the same quarter in the previous year, the firm posted $0.80 EPS. The firm’s quarterly revenue was up 4.8% on a year-over-year basis. As a group, equities analysts anticipate that Teradyne will post 3.17 EPS for the current year.

Teradyne announced that its board has initiated a stock buyback program on Monday, November 11th that permits the company to buyback $100.00 million in shares. This buyback authorization permits the company to repurchase up to 0.6% of its shares through open market purchases. Shares buyback programs are often an indication that the company’s management believes its shares are undervalued.

Teradyne Dividend Announcement

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

Insider Activity at Teradyne

In other Teradyne news, CEO Gregory Stephen Smith sold 3,080 shares of Teradyne stock in a transaction that occurred on Friday, January 3rd. The stock was sold at an average price of $130.00, for a total value of $400,400.00. Following the transaction, 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 SEC, which is available at the SEC website. 0.36% of the stock is currently owned by company insiders.

Institutional Inflows and Outflows

Institutional investors and hedge funds have recently made changes to their positions in the stock. Capital Performance Advisors LLP acquired a new stake in Teradyne during the third quarter worth $29,000. Quarry LP boosted its position in shares of Teradyne by 256.1% during the 2nd quarter. Quarry LP now owns 235 shares of the company’s stock valued at $35,000 after acquiring an additional 169 shares in the last quarter. Coastline Trust Co acquired a new stake in shares of Teradyne during the 3rd quarter valued at about $46,000. Brooklyn Investment Group acquired a new position in Teradyne in the third quarter worth about $52,000. Finally, Eastern Bank bought a new position in Teradyne during the third quarter worth about $67,000. Institutional investors own 99.77% of the company’s stock.

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.