StockNews.com Lowers IDEX (NYSE:IEX) to Hold

StockNews.com downgraded shares of IDEX (NYSE:IEX) from a buy rating to a hold rating in a research report report published on Thursday morning.

Several other equities research analysts also recently issued reports on IEX. Royal Bank of Canada reaffirmed an outperform rating and issued a $255.00 price target on shares of IDEX in a research report on Thursday, March 21st. Stifel Nicolaus raised IDEX from a hold rating to a buy rating and raised their price target for the company from $215.00 to $265.00 in a research report on Thursday, February 8th. Citigroup raised their price target on IDEX from $254.00 to $277.00 and gave the company a buy rating in a research report on Monday, April 8th. Robert W. Baird lowered their price target on IDEX from $260.00 to $256.00 and set an outperform rating on the stock in a research report on Thursday, April 25th. Finally, Oppenheimer raised their price target on IDEX from $245.00 to $252.00 and gave the company an outperform rating in a research report on Thursday, April 18th. Two analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and six have assigned a buy rating to the stock. According to MarketBeat, the company presently has an average rating of Moderate Buy and a consensus price target of $250.71.

IDEX Stock Down 0.1 %

NYSE IEX traded down $0.21 during trading on Thursday, hitting $220.42. 405,389 shares of the company traded hands, compared to its average volume of 354,231. IDEX has a 12 month low of $183.76 and a 12 month high of $246.36. The business has a fifty day simple moving average of $235.22 and a 200 day simple moving average of $217.25. The company has a current ratio of 3.37, a quick ratio of 2.45 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.37. The company has a market capitalization of $16.68 billion, a P/E ratio of 29.00, a PEG ratio of 2.21 and a beta of 0.99.

IDEX (NYSE:IEX) last posted its earnings results on Tuesday, April 23rd. The industrial products company reported $1.88 earnings per share for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $1.76 by $0.12. IDEX had a return on equity of 17.60% and a net margin of 17.89%. The company had revenue of $801.00 million for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $807.52 million. During the same period last year, the company earned $2.09 earnings per share. The business’s revenue was down 5.3% compared to the same quarter last year. As a group, sell-side analysts predict that IDEX will post 8.33 EPS for the current year.

Institutional Inflows and Outflows

A number of hedge funds and other institutional investors have recently added to or reduced their stakes in the business. Impax Asset Management Group plc lifted its stake in IDEX by 4.0% during the fourth quarter. Impax Asset Management Group plc now owns 2,190,741 shares of the industrial products company’s stock worth $475,632,000 after purchasing an additional 84,502 shares during the period. Barclays PLC lifted its stake in IDEX by 3.3% during the third quarter. Barclays PLC now owns 1,143,583 shares of the industrial products company’s stock worth $237,890,000 after purchasing an additional 36,928 shares during the period. Norges Bank bought a new position in shares of IDEX in the fourth quarter valued at approximately $237,425,000. Northern Trust Corp raised its stake in shares of IDEX by 6.1% in the third quarter. Northern Trust Corp now owns 785,716 shares of the industrial products company’s stock valued at $163,445,000 after acquiring an additional 45,120 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Alecta Tjanstepension Omsesidigt raised its stake in shares of IDEX by 420.8% in the fourth quarter. Alecta Tjanstepension Omsesidigt now owns 781,172 shares of the industrial products company’s stock valued at $169,600,000 after acquiring an additional 631,172 shares during the last quarter. Institutional investors own 97.96% of the company’s stock.

IDEX Company Profile

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.