Moloney Securities Asset Management LLC Increases Position in Veeco Instruments Inc. (NASDAQ:VECO)

Moloney Securities Asset Management LLC grew its holdings in Veeco Instruments Inc. (NASDAQ:VECO) by 41.7% in the third quarter, Holdings Channel.com reports. The institutional investor owned 32,076 shares of the semiconductor company’s stock after acquiring an additional 9,442 shares during the quarter. Moloney Securities Asset Management LLC’s holdings in Veeco Instruments were worth $1,063,000 as of its most recent filing with the SEC.

A number of other institutional investors and hedge funds have also made changes to their positions in the business. Driehaus Capital Management LLC raised its holdings in Veeco Instruments by 119.3% during the second quarter. Driehaus Capital Management LLC now owns 1,458,288 shares of the semiconductor company’s stock worth $68,117,000 after purchasing an additional 793,429 shares in the last quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. raised its holdings in Veeco Instruments by 5.8% during the first quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 7,131,073 shares of the semiconductor company’s stock worth $250,800,000 after purchasing an additional 391,346 shares in the last quarter. New York State Common Retirement Fund raised its holdings in Veeco Instruments by 249.0% during the third quarter. New York State Common Retirement Fund now owns 430,757 shares of the semiconductor company’s stock worth $14,271,000 after purchasing an additional 307,348 shares in the last quarter. Mesirow Institutional Investment Management Inc. purchased a new position in Veeco Instruments during the second quarter worth about $8,857,000. Finally, Healthcare of Ontario Pension Plan Trust Fund raised its holdings in Veeco Instruments by 132.1% during the first quarter. Healthcare of Ontario Pension Plan Trust Fund now owns 195,000 shares of the semiconductor company’s stock worth $6,858,000 after purchasing an additional 111,000 shares in the last quarter. 98.46% of the stock is owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

Several research analysts recently issued reports on VECO shares. Northland Securities cut their price target on shares of Veeco Instruments from $53.00 to $47.00 and set an “outperform” rating for the company in a report on Wednesday, August 7th. The Goldman Sachs Group cut their price target on shares of Veeco Instruments from $39.00 to $35.00 and set a “neutral” rating for the company in a report on Thursday, August 8th. Benchmark reaffirmed a “buy” rating and issued a $42.00 target price on shares of Veeco Instruments in a report on Wednesday, August 7th. Citigroup cut shares of Veeco Instruments from a “buy” rating to a “neutral” rating and increased their target price for the company from $45.00 to $50.00 in a report on Monday, July 15th. Finally, StockNews.com raised shares of Veeco Instruments from a “sell” rating to a “hold” rating in a report on Thursday, October 31st. Four investment analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and four have given a buy rating to the company’s stock. Based on data from MarketBeat, the company has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus target price of $45.57.

Insider Activity

In other news, CFO John P. Kiernan sold 2,500 shares of the stock in a transaction that occurred on Thursday, October 10th. The shares were sold at an average price of $32.63, for a total value of $81,575.00. Following the sale, the chief financial officer now directly owns 82,642 shares in the company, valued at $2,696,608.46. This represents a 0.00 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available through the SEC website. Company insiders own 2.20% of the company’s stock.

Veeco Instruments Trading Up 1.5 %

Shares of Veeco Instruments stock opened at $29.14 on Wednesday. The company has a 50-day moving average of $31.56 and a two-hundred day moving average of $37.59. The stock has a market cap of $1.65 billion, a PE ratio of 20.67 and a beta of 1.17. Veeco Instruments Inc. has a 12-month low of $24.56 and a 12-month high of $49.25. The company has a current ratio of 3.52, a quick ratio of 2.32 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.35.

Veeco Instruments (NASDAQ:VECO) last released its quarterly earnings results on Tuesday, August 6th. The semiconductor company reported $0.42 EPS for the quarter, missing the consensus estimate of $0.43 by ($0.01). The business had revenue of $175.88 million during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $176.03 million. Veeco Instruments had a net margin of 11.83% and a return on equity of 12.03%. The firm’s revenue for the quarter was up 8.8% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same quarter in the prior year, the company earned $0.21 earnings per share. On average, research analysts anticipate that Veeco Instruments Inc. will post 1.2 EPS 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.