Veeco Instruments (NASDAQ:VECO) Upgraded to “Buy” at Citigroup

Veeco Instruments (NASDAQ:VECO) was upgraded by equities researchers at Citigroup from a “neutral” rating to a “buy” rating in a research report issued to clients and investors on Monday,Benzinga reports. The brokerage currently has a $33.00 price target on the semiconductor company’s stock. Citigroup’s target price would suggest a potential upside of 21.50% from the company’s previous close.

VECO has been the subject of several other reports. Benchmark lowered their price objective on Veeco Instruments from $42.00 to $38.00 and set a “buy” rating for the company in a research note on Thursday, November 7th. StockNews.com raised shares of Veeco Instruments from a “sell” rating to a “hold” rating in a research note on Friday, December 6th. Oppenheimer reduced their price objective on shares of Veeco Instruments from $45.00 to $40.00 and set an “outperform” rating on the stock in a research report on Thursday, November 7th. Finally, The Goldman Sachs Group dropped their target price on Veeco Instruments from $35.00 to $30.00 and set a “neutral” rating for the company in a research report on Thursday, November 7th. Three analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and five have assigned a buy rating to the company. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, the company currently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average price target of $39.71.

Veeco Instruments Trading Up 0.6 %

VECO stock opened at $27.16 on Monday. The firm has a fifty day moving average price of $27.91 and a 200 day moving average price of $33.80. Veeco Instruments has a fifty-two week low of $25.52 and a fifty-two week high of $49.25. The firm has a market cap of $1.54 billion, a PE ratio of 20.12 and a beta of 1.15. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.33, a quick ratio of 2.41 and a current ratio of 3.54.

Veeco Instruments (NASDAQ:VECO) last posted its earnings results on Wednesday, November 6th. The semiconductor company reported $0.46 earnings per share for the quarter, topping 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 firm had revenue of $184.80 million for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $180.57 million. During the same period in the previous year, the firm posted $0.41 EPS. The business’s quarterly revenue was up 4.2% on a year-over-year basis. Sell-side analysts anticipate that Veeco Instruments will post 1.12 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Insider Buying and Selling at Veeco Instruments

In related news, CFO John P. Kiernan sold 2,500 shares of Veeco Instruments stock in a transaction that occurred on Thursday, October 10th. The shares were sold at an average price of $32.63, for a total transaction of $81,575.00. Following the transaction, the chief financial officer now directly owns 82,642 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $2,696,608.46. This trade represents a 2.94 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which is available through this link. 2.40% of the stock is currently owned by corporate insiders.

Institutional Trading of Veeco Instruments

Several hedge funds and other institutional investors have recently bought and sold shares of the stock. Nordea Investment Management AB lifted its stake in shares of Veeco Instruments by 4.2% during the 4th quarter. Nordea Investment Management AB now owns 284,686 shares of the semiconductor company’s stock worth $7,786,000 after purchasing an additional 11,483 shares during the last quarter. Principal Financial Group Inc. lifted its position in shares of Veeco Instruments by 0.8% during the third quarter. Principal Financial Group Inc. now owns 311,886 shares of the semiconductor company’s stock valued at $10,333,000 after buying an additional 2,583 shares during the last quarter. 272 Capital LP bought a new stake in shares of Veeco Instruments in the 3rd quarter valued at about $50,000. Synovus Financial Corp purchased a new position in shares of Veeco Instruments in the 3rd quarter worth approximately $633,000. Finally, Geode Capital Management LLC raised its stake in shares of Veeco Instruments by 1.7% during the 3rd quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC now owns 1,337,321 shares of the semiconductor company’s stock worth $44,314,000 after acquiring an additional 22,850 shares in the last quarter. Institutional investors own 98.46% of the company’s stock.

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.