State Street Corp Purchases 30,008 Shares of Veeco Instruments Inc. (NASDAQ:VECO)

State Street Corp raised its position in shares of Veeco Instruments Inc. (NASDAQ:VECO) by 1.5% during the third quarter, HoldingsChannel.com reports. The fund owned 2,091,995 shares of the semiconductor company’s stock after buying an additional 30,008 shares during the quarter. State Street Corp’s holdings in Veeco Instruments were worth $69,308,000 at the end of the most recent quarter.

Other institutional investors have also recently made changes to their positions in the company. Signaturefd LLC raised its holdings in shares of Veeco Instruments by 130.6% during the third quarter. Signaturefd LLC now owns 1,328 shares of the semiconductor company’s stock valued at $44,000 after purchasing an additional 752 shares during the period. KBC Group NV raised its holdings in shares of Veeco Instruments by 46.8% during the third quarter. KBC Group NV now owns 2,088 shares of the semiconductor company’s stock valued at $69,000 after purchasing an additional 666 shares during the period. nVerses Capital LLC raised its holdings in shares of Veeco Instruments by 733.3% during the second quarter. nVerses Capital LLC now owns 2,500 shares of the semiconductor company’s stock valued at $117,000 after purchasing an additional 2,200 shares during the period. GAMMA Investing LLC raised its holdings in shares of Veeco Instruments by 116.2% during the third quarter. GAMMA Investing LLC now owns 3,626 shares of the semiconductor company’s stock valued at $120,000 after purchasing an additional 1,949 shares during the period. Finally, US Bancorp DE raised its holdings in shares of Veeco Instruments by 14.8% during the third quarter. US Bancorp DE now owns 3,864 shares of the semiconductor company’s stock valued at $128,000 after purchasing an additional 498 shares during the period. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 98.46% of the company’s stock.

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 transaction of $81,575.00. Following the completion of the transaction, the chief financial officer now directly owns 82,642 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $2,696,608.46. This represents a 2.94 % decrease in their position. The transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available at the SEC website. Insiders own 2.40% of the company’s stock.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

VECO has been the topic of several research reports. The Goldman Sachs Group dropped their price objective on shares of Veeco Instruments from $35.00 to $30.00 and set a “neutral” rating on the stock in a report on Thursday, November 7th. Benchmark lowered their target price on shares of Veeco Instruments from $42.00 to $38.00 and set a “buy” rating on the stock in a report on Thursday, November 7th. StockNews.com upgraded shares of Veeco Instruments from a “sell” rating to a “hold” rating in a report on Friday, December 6th. Finally, Oppenheimer lowered their target price on shares of Veeco Instruments from $45.00 to $40.00 and set an “outperform” rating on the stock in a report on Thursday, November 7th. Four equities research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and four have issued a buy rating to the company’s stock. Based on data from MarketBeat, the company has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus target price of $42.14.

Veeco Instruments Trading Up 0.2 %

Shares of VECO stock opened at $28.01 on Wednesday. Veeco Instruments Inc. has a 52-week low of $25.52 and a 52-week high of $49.25. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.33, a quick ratio of 2.41 and a current ratio of 3.54. The company has a 50-day simple moving average of $28.87 and a two-hundred day simple moving average of $35.38. The company has a market capitalization of $1.59 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 20.75 and a beta of 1.15.

Veeco Instruments (NASDAQ:VECO) last issued its quarterly earnings data on Wednesday, November 6th. The semiconductor company reported $0.46 earnings per share (EPS) 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 business had revenue of $184.80 million during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $180.57 million. During the same period in the prior year, the firm posted $0.41 EPS. The firm’s quarterly revenue was up 4.2% compared to the same quarter last year. Research analysts anticipate that Veeco Instruments Inc. will post 1.12 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.