National Pension Service Grows Stake in Teradyne, Inc. (NASDAQ:TER)

National Pension Service raised its stake in Teradyne, Inc. (NASDAQ:TER) by 4.3% during the 4th quarter, HoldingsChannel reports. The firm owned 252,482 shares of the company’s stock after acquiring an additional 10,430 shares during the quarter. National Pension Service’s holdings in Teradyne were worth $31,793,000 as of its most recent SEC filing.

Several other hedge funds also recently added to or reduced their stakes in the stock. Thrivent Financial for Lutherans raised its position in Teradyne by 1.7% in the third quarter. Thrivent Financial for Lutherans now owns 6,403 shares of the company’s stock valued at $858,000 after purchasing an additional 104 shares during the period. GAMMA Investing LLC raised its position in Teradyne by 3.1% in the fourth quarter. GAMMA Investing LLC now owns 3,445 shares of the company’s stock valued at $434,000 after purchasing an additional 105 shares during the period. TD Private Client Wealth LLC raised its position in Teradyne by 0.5% in the third quarter. TD Private Client Wealth LLC now owns 19,904 shares of the company’s stock valued at $2,666,000 after purchasing an additional 108 shares during the period. VELA Investment Management LLC raised its position in Teradyne by 0.9% in the third quarter. VELA Investment Management LLC now owns 12,782 shares of the company’s stock valued at $1,712,000 after purchasing an additional 113 shares during the period. Finally, Wealthcare Advisory Partners LLC raised its position in Teradyne by 5.4% in the fourth quarter. Wealthcare Advisory Partners LLC now owns 2,577 shares of the company’s stock valued at $324,000 after purchasing an additional 132 shares during the period. 99.77% of the stock is owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

Teradyne Stock Up 1.0 %

Shares of Teradyne stock opened at $109.86 on Friday. The firm has a market cap of $17.77 billion, a P/E ratio of 32.99, a P/E/G ratio of 2.83 and a beta of 1.45. Teradyne, Inc. has a fifty-two week low of $95.80 and a fifty-two week high of $163.21. The business has a 50-day moving average price of $123.51 and a 200 day moving average price of $122.67.

Teradyne (NASDAQ:TER) last posted its earnings results on Wednesday, January 29th. The company reported $0.95 EPS for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $0.91 by $0.04. Teradyne had a return on equity of 19.08% and a net margin of 19.23%. As a group, equities research analysts anticipate that Teradyne, Inc. will post 3.88 earnings per share for the current year.

Teradyne Announces Dividend

The business also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Friday, March 14th. Stockholders of record on Friday, February 14th will be issued a dividend of $0.12 per share. This represents a $0.48 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 0.44%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Friday, February 14th. Teradyne’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is presently 14.41%.

Teradyne declared that its Board of Directors has initiated a stock buyback program on Monday, November 11th that allows the company to buyback $100.00 million in shares. This buyback authorization allows the company to repurchase up to 0.6% of its stock through open market purchases. Stock buyback programs are typically an indication that the company’s management believes its stock is undervalued.

Wall Street Analyst Weigh In

TER has been the topic of a number of analyst reports. Susquehanna lifted their target price on Teradyne from $145.00 to $165.00 and gave the stock a “positive” rating in a research report on Wednesday, January 22nd. Northland Securities dropped their target price on Teradyne from $154.00 to $140.00 and set an “outperform” rating on the stock in a research report on Friday, January 31st. UBS Group dropped their target price on Teradyne from $160.00 to $155.00 and set a “buy” rating on the stock in a research report on Friday, January 31st. Northland Capmk raised Teradyne from a “hold” rating to a “strong-buy” rating in a research report on Monday, January 6th. Finally, Morgan Stanley lowered Teradyne from an “equal weight” rating to an “underweight” rating and dropped their target price for the stock from $121.00 to $117.00 in a research report on Tuesday, January 21st. One research analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, three have assigned a hold rating, ten have assigned a buy rating and one has issued a strong buy rating to the company. Based on data from MarketBeat, the stock has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average price target of $143.77.

Insider Activity

In other news, insider Richard John Burns sold 407 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Tuesday, January 28th. The stock was sold at an average price of $120.51, for a total transaction of $49,047.57. Following the completion of the transaction, the insider now directly owns 20,764 shares in the company, valued at approximately $2,502,269.64. The trade was a 1.92 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which is accessible through the SEC website. Also, CEO Gregory Stephen Smith sold 3,080 shares of the business’s 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 owns 74,660 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $9,705,800. This represents a 3.96 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Over the last ninety days, insiders sold 8,479 shares of company stock valued at $1,013,134. 0.18% of the stock is currently owned by insiders.

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.