Ensign Peak Advisors Inc Grows Stock Holdings in IDEX Co. (NYSE:IEX)

Ensign Peak Advisors Inc grew its position in shares of IDEX Co. (NYSE:IEX - Free Report) by 25.9% in the 4th quarter, according to the company in its most recent Form 13F filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The fund owned 305,242 shares of the industrial products company's stock after acquiring an additional 62,887 shares during the period. Ensign Peak Advisors Inc owned about 0.40% of IDEX worth $63,884,000 as of its most recent SEC filing.

A number of other institutional investors also recently modified their holdings of IEX. Banque de Luxembourg S.A. purchased a new position in IDEX during the 4th quarter valued at $27,000. Quarry LP purchased a new position in shares of IDEX during the fourth quarter valued at about $49,000. Jones Financial Companies Lllp raised its stake in IDEX by 35.2% in the fourth quarter. Jones Financial Companies Lllp now owns 407 shares of the industrial products company's stock worth $85,000 after buying an additional 106 shares in the last quarter. Assetmark Inc. lifted its holdings in IDEX by 129.1% in the fourth quarter. Assetmark Inc. now owns 417 shares of the industrial products company's stock worth $87,000 after buying an additional 235 shares during the period. Finally, Ancora Advisors LLC boosted its position in IDEX by 24,700.0% during the 4th quarter. Ancora Advisors LLC now owns 496 shares of the industrial products company's stock valued at $104,000 after acquiring an additional 494 shares in the last quarter. 97.96% of the stock is currently owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

Analyst Ratings Changes

IEX has been the topic of several research reports. Robert W. Baird set a $215.00 price target on IDEX in a research report on Friday, May 2nd. Mizuho set a $175.00 price target on shares of IDEX in a research note on Tuesday, April 22nd. Citigroup dropped their price objective on shares of IDEX from $264.00 to $201.00 and set a "buy" rating on the stock in a research note on Monday, April 14th. Stifel Nicolaus raised their target price on shares of IDEX from $192.00 to $208.00 and gave the company a "buy" rating in a research note on Friday, May 2nd. Finally, Royal Bank of Canada boosted their price target on IDEX from $206.00 to $208.00 and gave the stock an "outperform" rating in a research report on Friday, May 2nd. Three analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and six have assigned a buy rating to the company's stock. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, IDEX has an average rating of "Moderate Buy" and a consensus price target of $211.25.

IDEX Stock Performance

IEX stock traded down $0.79 on Tuesday, hitting $190.50. The company had a trading volume of 471,418 shares, compared to its average volume of 577,561. The company has a current ratio of 2.53, a quick ratio of 1.85 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.49. IDEX Co. has a 12-month low of $153.36 and a 12-month high of $238.22. The stock has a market cap of $14.39 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 28.65, a P/E/G ratio of 1.98 and a beta of 1.07. The stock's 50-day simple moving average is $176.45 and its 200 day simple moving average is $201.13.

IDEX (NYSE:IEX - Get Free Report) last issued its quarterly earnings data on Thursday, May 1st. The industrial products company reported $1.75 EPS for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $1.64 by $0.11. IDEX had a return on equity of 16.08% and a net margin of 15.45%. The company had revenue of $814.30 million during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $807.25 million. During the same quarter in the previous year, the company posted $1.88 earnings per share. IDEX's revenue was up 1.7% compared to the same quarter last year. As a group, equities research analysts expect that IDEX Co. will post 8.26 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

IDEX Increases Dividend

The business also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Friday, May 30th. Investors of record on Monday, May 19th will be given a dividend of $0.71 per share. The ex-dividend date is Monday, May 19th. This is an increase from IDEX's previous quarterly dividend of $0.69. This represents a $2.84 annualized dividend and a yield of 1.49%. IDEX's payout ratio is 43.74%.

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.