Littelfuse (LFUS) has showed up as a selection in our Alert HQ lists twice now. The first time was in February based on daily price performance data . Just recently it popped up in our scan based on weekly data.
LFUS exhibits a classic chart showing a prolonged decline culminating in a reversal to the upside. Why the reversal? What is driving this run-up in the stock's price?
Background --
Littelfuse, Inc. manufactures and sells circuit protection and electrical fuses for the electronic, automotive, and electrical markets in the Americas, Europe, and Asia-Pacific. It offers electronic circuit protection products, such as fuses and protectors, positive temperature coefficient resettable fuses, varistors, polymer electrostatic discharge suppressors, discrete transient voltage suppression (TVS) diodes, TVS diode arrays and protection thyristors, gas discharge tubes, power switching components, and fuseholders, blocks, and related accessories.
In the electronics market, the company supplies leading manufacturers such as Alcatel-Lucent, Celestica, Delta, Flextronics, Foxconn, Hewlett-Packard, Huawei, IBM, Intel, Jabil, LG, Motorola, Nokia, Panasonic, Quanta, Samsung, Sanmina-SCI, Seagate, Siemens and Sony.
The company is also the leading provider of circuit protection for the automotive industry and the third largest producer of electrical fuses in North America. In the automotive market, the Company's end customers include major automotive manufacturers in North America, Europe and Asia such as BMW, Chrysler, Daimler, Ford Motor, General Motors, Honda Motor, Hyundai and Toyota. The company also supplies wiring harness manufacturers and auto parts suppliers worldwide, including Alcoa Automotive, Auto Zone, Delphi, Lear, Pep Boys, Siemens VDO, Sumitomo, Valeo and Yazaki. In the electrical market, the company supplies customers such as Abbott, Carrier, Dow Chemical, DuPont, GE, General Motors, Heinz, International Paper, John Deere, Lithonia Lighting, Marconi, Merck, Otis Elevator, Poland Springs, Procter & Gamble, Rockwell and 3M.
The Numbers --
In early February the company released their earnings report for the 4th quarter and for the entire 2007 fiscal year. Results were somewhat mixed but leaned to the positive side.
Sales increased 6% over the fourth quarter of the previous year and adjusted diluted earnings per share of $0.38 increased 52% over the prior year adjusted earnings per share of $0.25. Full year 2007 sales were just over $536 million up only slightly from 2006, but still a new record for the company.
Analysts, on average, were expecting a profit of 36 cents per share in the 4th quarter, according to a poll by Thomson Financial.
