Nordea Investment Management AB Grows Stock Position in Veeco Instruments Inc. $VECO

Nordea Investment Management AB boosted its stake in Veeco Instruments Inc. (NASDAQ:VECO) by 1.4% in the second quarter, according to the company in its most recent 13F filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission. The firm owned 286,501 shares of the semiconductor company’s stock after acquiring an additional 4,063 shares during the quarter. Nordea Investment Management AB owned about 0.48% of Veeco Instruments worth $5,830,000 at the end of the most recent reporting period.

A number of other institutional investors and hedge funds have also recently bought and sold shares of VECO. GAMMA Investing LLC boosted its holdings in Veeco Instruments by 342.6% in the 1st quarter. GAMMA Investing LLC now owns 8,807 shares of the semiconductor company’s stock worth $177,000 after acquiring an additional 6,817 shares during the period. Advisor Resource Council purchased a new position in shares of Veeco Instruments during the 1st quarter valued at approximately $351,000. KBC Group NV boosted its stake in shares of Veeco Instruments by 75.9% during the 1st quarter. KBC Group NV now owns 3,672 shares of the semiconductor company’s stock valued at $74,000 after buying an additional 1,584 shares during the last quarter. Principal Financial Group Inc. boosted its stake in shares of Veeco Instruments by 4.0% during the 1st quarter. Principal Financial Group Inc. now owns 341,069 shares of the semiconductor company’s stock valued at $6,849,000 after buying an additional 13,182 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Envestnet Asset Management Inc. boosted its stake in shares of Veeco Instruments by 9.8% during the 1st quarter. Envestnet Asset Management Inc. now owns 68,747 shares of the semiconductor company’s stock valued at $1,380,000 after buying an additional 6,145 shares during the last quarter. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 98.46% of the company’s stock.

Insider Buying and Selling at Veeco Instruments

In other Veeco Instruments news, CEO William John Miller sold 25,000 shares of the stock in a transaction on Wednesday, October 1st. The stock was sold at an average price of $32.00, for a total value of $800,000.00. Following the sale, the chief executive officer directly owned 514,543 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $16,465,376. This trade represents a 4.63% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available at this link. Also, SVP Adrian Devasahayam sold 3,851 shares of the stock in a transaction on Thursday, October 2nd. The stock was sold at an average price of $34.00, for a total value of $130,934.00. Following the completion of the sale, the senior vice president directly owned 78,269 shares in the company, valued at $2,661,146. This represents a 4.69% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders sold 61,911 shares of company stock worth $1,781,550 over the last ninety days. 2.30% of the stock is owned by corporate insiders.

Veeco Instruments Stock Performance

Shares of VECO opened at $29.53 on Tuesday. The business’s fifty day moving average price is $27.04 and its 200 day moving average price is $22.58. Veeco Instruments Inc. has a 12-month low of $16.92 and a 12-month high of $34.45. The stock has a market capitalization of $1.78 billion, a PE ratio of 28.95 and a beta of 1.27. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.26, a current ratio of 5.10 and a quick ratio of 3.43.

Veeco Instruments (NASDAQ:VECO) last announced its quarterly earnings data on Wednesday, August 6th. The semiconductor company reported $0.36 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $0.22 by $0.14. Veeco Instruments had a return on equity of 7.38% and a net margin of 8.65%.The firm had revenue of $166.10 million for the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $151.31 million. During the same period last year, the business posted $0.42 earnings per share. The firm’s revenue for the quarter was down 5.6% on a year-over-year basis. Equities research analysts forecast that Veeco Instruments Inc. will post 0.76 EPS for the current year.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

Several equities analysts have recently commented on the company. Northland Securities cut Veeco Instruments from an “outperform” rating to a “market perform” rating and set a $30.00 target price for the company. in a research note on Tuesday, October 7th. Benchmark reduced their target price on Veeco Instruments from $31.00 to $28.00 and set a “buy” rating for the company in a research note on Thursday, August 7th. Needham & Company LLC cut Veeco Instruments from a “buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a research note on Friday, October 3rd. Northland Capmk cut Veeco Instruments from a “strong-buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a research note on Tuesday, October 7th. Finally, Weiss Ratings reiterated a “hold (c)” rating on shares of Veeco Instruments in a research note on Wednesday, October 8th. Three analysts have rated the stock with a Buy rating and six have given a Hold rating to the company’s stock. According to MarketBeat.com, the stock presently has a consensus rating of “Hold” and an average target price of $27.71.

Veeco Instruments Profile

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.