IDEX (NYSE:IEX) Upgraded by StockNews.com to Buy

StockNews.com upgraded shares of IDEX (NYSE:IEX) from a hold rating to a buy rating in a research report released on Tuesday morning.

Several other equities research analysts have also recently weighed in on the company. Citigroup increased their price objective on IDEX from $254.00 to $277.00 and gave the stock a buy rating in a report on Monday, April 8th. Royal Bank of Canada reiterated an outperform rating and issued a $255.00 price objective on shares of IDEX in a report on Thursday, March 21st. Finally, Stifel Nicolaus upgraded IDEX from a hold rating to a buy rating and increased their price objective for the stock from $215.00 to $265.00 in a report on Thursday, February 8th. One equities research analyst has rated the stock with a hold rating and six have given a buy rating to the company. According to data from MarketBeat.com, the stock presently has a consensus rating of Moderate Buy and a consensus price target of $238.78.

IDEX Price Performance

IEX opened at $226.10 on Tuesday. The stock’s 50 day simple moving average is $236.43 and its 200 day simple moving average is $215.88. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.37, a current ratio of 2.89 and a quick ratio of 2.05. IDEX has a 1 year low of $183.76 and a 1 year high of $246.36. The firm has a market cap of $17.11 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 28.84, a PEG ratio of 2.29 and a beta of 0.97.

IDEX (NYSE:IEX) last posted its quarterly earnings results on Tuesday, February 6th. The industrial products company reported $1.83 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $1.78 by $0.05. IDEX had a return on equity of 18.56% and a net margin of 18.21%. The business had revenue of $788.90 million for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $767.96 million. During the same period last year, the company earned $2.01 EPS. IDEX’s revenue for the quarter was down 2.7% compared to the same quarter last year. As a group, analysts predict that IDEX will post 8.35 earnings per share for the current year.

Institutional Inflows and Outflows

A number of institutional investors and hedge funds have recently made changes to their positions in IEX. American Century Companies Inc. lifted its stake in shares of IDEX by 34.2% in the 1st quarter. American Century Companies Inc. now owns 3,251 shares of the industrial products company’s stock valued at $623,000 after purchasing an additional 829 shares during the period. Healthcare of Ontario Pension Plan Trust Fund purchased a new position in shares of IDEX in the 1st quarter valued at approximately $1,058,000. Commonwealth of Pennsylvania Public School Empls Retrmt SYS lifted its stake in shares of IDEX by 6.6% in the 1st quarter. Commonwealth of Pennsylvania Public School Empls Retrmt SYS now owns 10,173 shares of the industrial products company’s stock valued at $1,950,000 after purchasing an additional 630 shares during the period. Yousif Capital Management LLC lifted its stake in shares of IDEX by 3.5% in the 1st quarter. Yousif Capital Management LLC now owns 16,223 shares of the industrial products company’s stock valued at $3,110,000 after purchasing an additional 555 shares during the period. Finally, Sei Investments Co. increased its position in IDEX by 24.2% during the 1st quarter. Sei Investments Co. now owns 82,824 shares of the industrial products company’s stock valued at $15,877,000 after buying an additional 16,117 shares in the last quarter. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 97.96% of the company’s stock.

About IDEX

IDEX Corporation, together with its subsidiaries, provides applied solutions worldwide. The company operates through three segments: Fluid & Metering Technologies (FMT), Health & Science Technologies (HST), and Fire & Safety/Diversified Products (FSDP). The FMT segment designs, produces, and distributes positive displacement pumps, valves, small volume provers, flow meters, injectors, and other fluid-handling pump modules and systems, as well as flow monitoring and other services for the food, chemical, general industrial, water and wastewater, agricultural, and energy industries.