Robert W. Baird Issues Pessimistic Forecast for Danaher (NYSE:DHR) Stock Price

Danaher (NYSE:DHR - Free Report) had its price objective cut by Robert W. Baird from $231.00 to $225.00 in a research report report published on Wednesday morning,Benzinga reports. They currently have an outperform rating on the conglomerate's stock.

DHR has been the subject of a number of other research reports. JPMorgan Chase & Co. dropped their price objective on shares of Danaher from $280.00 to $260.00 and set an "overweight" rating for the company in a research note on Tuesday, April 22nd. Citigroup restated a "buy" rating on shares of Danaher in a research note on Monday, April 7th. The Goldman Sachs Group raised shares of Danaher from a "neutral" rating to a "buy" rating and set a $260.00 target price on the stock in a research note on Friday, March 21st. Stifel Nicolaus raised shares of Danaher from a "hold" rating to a "buy" rating and set a $260.00 price target for the company in a report on Friday, March 14th. Finally, Jefferies Financial Group dropped their target price on shares of Danaher from $260.00 to $230.00 and set a "buy" rating on the stock in a research report on Tuesday, April 22nd. Five investment analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and sixteen have assigned a buy rating to the company's stock. According to MarketBeat, Danaher presently has a consensus rating of "Moderate Buy" and an average target price of $264.40.

Danaher Trading Down 0.9 %

DHR traded down $1.79 on Wednesday, hitting $195.36. The company had a trading volume of 1,137,874 shares, compared to its average volume of 3,346,341. Danaher has a 1 year low of $171.00 and a 1 year high of $281.70. The company's fifty day moving average price is $200.87 and its 200 day moving average price is $223.98. The firm has a market cap of $139.81 billion, a P/E ratio of 36.97, a PEG ratio of 2.66 and a beta of 0.86. The company has a current ratio of 1.40, a quick ratio of 1.05 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.31.

Danaher (NYSE:DHR - Get Free Report) last announced its quarterly earnings data on Tuesday, April 22nd. The conglomerate reported $1.88 earnings per share for the quarter, beating analysts' consensus estimates of $1.62 by $0.26. The business had revenue of $5.74 billion for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $5.58 billion. Danaher had a net margin of 16.33% and a return on equity of 10.82%. As a group, equities analysts expect that Danaher will post 7.63 earnings per share for the current year.

Danaher Increases Dividend

The firm also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Friday, April 25th. Shareholders of record on Friday, March 28th were given a $0.32 dividend. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Friday, March 28th. This represents a $1.28 annualized dividend and a yield of 0.66%. This is a boost from Danaher's previous quarterly dividend of $0.27. Danaher's payout ratio is currently 24.85%.

Insider Buying and Selling

In other Danaher news, SVP Brian W. Ellis sold 5,700 shares of the company's stock in a transaction dated Thursday, January 30th. The shares were sold at an average price of $224.13, for a total transaction of $1,277,541.00. Following the completion of the sale, the senior vice president now directly owns 20,230 shares in the company, valued at $4,534,149.90. This represents a 21.98 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which is available at this hyperlink. 11.10% of the stock is owned by insiders.

Institutional Investors Weigh In On Danaher

A number of institutional investors have recently made changes to their positions in DHR. Horizon Financial Services LLC raised its stake in Danaher by 20,400.0% during the 1st quarter. Horizon Financial Services LLC now owns 8,200 shares of the conglomerate's stock valued at $1,681,000 after purchasing an additional 8,160 shares during the period. Defender Capital LLC. raised its position in Danaher by 13.5% in the 1st quarter. Defender Capital LLC. now owns 156,543 shares of the conglomerate's stock worth $32,091,000 after purchasing an additional 18,592 shares during the period. FSM Wealth Advisors LLC grew its position in Danaher by 1.5% in the 1st quarter. FSM Wealth Advisors LLC now owns 5,979 shares of the conglomerate's stock valued at $1,226,000 after acquiring an additional 90 shares during the last quarter. Klingenstein Fields & Co. LP grew its stake in Danaher by 1.3% in the 1st quarter. Klingenstein Fields & Co. LP now owns 56,667 shares of the conglomerate's stock worth $11,617,000 after acquiring an additional 736 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Pictet North America Advisors SA grew its position in shares of Danaher by 9.4% during the 1st quarter. Pictet North America Advisors SA now owns 13,316 shares of the conglomerate's stock worth $2,730,000 after buying an additional 1,147 shares in the last quarter. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 79.05% of the company's stock.

About Danaher

Danaher Corporation designs, manufactures, and markets professional, medical, industrial, and commercial products and services worldwide. The Biotechnology segments offers bioprocess technologies, consumables, and services that advance, accelerate, and integrate the development and manufacture of therapeutics; cell line and cell culture media development services; cell culture media, process liquids and buffers for manufacturing, chromatography resins, filtration technologies, aseptic fill finish; single-use hardware and consumables and services, such as the design and installation of full manufacturing suites; lab filtration, separation, and purification; lab-scale protein purification and analytical tools; reagents, membranes, and services; and healthcare filtration solutions.