Veeco Instruments Inc. (NASDAQ:VECO) Receives Consensus Recommendation of “Moderate Buy” from Analysts

Veeco Instruments Inc. (NASDAQ:VECO) has received an average recommendation of “Moderate Buy” from the seven ratings firms that are presently covering the stock, Marketbeat Ratings reports. Two research analysts have rated the stock with a hold recommendation and five have issued a buy recommendation on the company. The average 1 year target price among analysts that have issued ratings on the stock in the last year is $39.00.

VECO has been the topic of several analyst reports. The Goldman Sachs Group lowered their price target on Veeco Instruments from $35.00 to $30.00 and set a “neutral” rating on the stock in a report on Thursday, November 7th. Benchmark dropped their price objective on Veeco Instruments from $42.00 to $38.00 and set a “buy” rating on the stock in a research note on Thursday, November 7th. Citigroup upgraded Veeco Instruments from a “neutral” rating to a “buy” rating and set a $33.00 target price for the company in a research note on Monday, January 6th. Oppenheimer reaffirmed an “outperform” rating and issued a $35.00 price target (down from $40.00) on shares of Veeco Instruments in a research report on Friday. Finally, StockNews.com raised Veeco Instruments from a “sell” rating to a “hold” rating in a research report on Friday, December 6th.

Insiders Place Their Bets

In other news, CFO John P. Kiernan sold 2,500 shares of Veeco Instruments stock in a transaction dated Friday, January 10th. The shares were sold at an average price of $27.63, for a total transaction of $69,075.00. Following the sale, the chief financial officer now directly owns 75,142 shares in the company, valued at approximately $2,076,173.46. The trade was a 3.22 % decrease in their position. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is accessible through the SEC website. Corporate insiders own 2.40% of the company’s stock.

Institutional Inflows and Outflows

Hedge funds and other institutional investors have recently added to or reduced their stakes in the business. Marshall Wace LLP lifted its position in Veeco Instruments by 33.3% during the 2nd quarter. Marshall Wace LLP now owns 59,986 shares of the semiconductor company’s stock worth $2,802,000 after buying an additional 14,991 shares in the last quarter. Algert Global LLC grew its position in shares of Veeco Instruments by 21.7% during the 2nd quarter. Algert Global LLC now owns 31,886 shares of the semiconductor company’s stock worth $1,489,000 after buying an additional 5,676 shares during the period. Creative Planning raised its stake in shares of Veeco Instruments by 93.7% during the second quarter. Creative Planning now owns 18,993 shares of the semiconductor company’s stock worth $887,000 after buying an additional 9,190 shares during the last quarter. GAMMA Investing LLC lifted its holdings in Veeco Instruments by 116.2% in the third quarter. GAMMA Investing LLC now owns 3,626 shares of the semiconductor company’s stock valued at $120,000 after buying an additional 1,949 shares during the period. Finally, Teamwork Financial Advisors LLC bought a new position in Veeco Instruments in the third quarter valued at approximately $292,000. Institutional investors own 98.46% of the company’s stock.

Veeco Instruments Price Performance

NASDAQ VECO opened at $24.38 on Friday. The company has a quick ratio of 2.41, a current ratio of 3.54 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.33. The stock has a market capitalization of $1.38 billion, a PE ratio of 18.06 and a beta of 1.13. Veeco Instruments has a 12-month low of $23.24 and a 12-month high of $49.25. The company has a 50 day moving average price of $27.04 and a two-hundred day moving average price of $30.54.

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

About Veeco Instruments

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.