Beacon Investment Advisory Services Inc. Reduces Stock Position in Danaher Corporation (NYSE:DHR)

Beacon Investment Advisory Services Inc. reduced its position in Danaher Corporation (NYSE:DHR - Free Report) by 18.4% in the 1st quarter, according to its most recent Form 13F filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). The institutional investor owned 121,514 shares of the conglomerate's stock after selling 27,393 shares during the quarter. Beacon Investment Advisory Services Inc.'s holdings in Danaher were worth $24,910,000 as of its most recent SEC filing.

A number of other hedge funds also recently added to or reduced their stakes in the business. GHP Investment Advisors Inc. increased its holdings in shares of Danaher by 396.0% in the 1st quarter. GHP Investment Advisors Inc. now owns 124 shares of the conglomerate's stock valued at $25,000 after acquiring an additional 99 shares during the period. Heck Capital Advisors LLC purchased a new position in Danaher in the fourth quarter valued at about $27,000. Sierra Ocean LLC raised its holdings in Danaher by 116.9% in the first quarter. Sierra Ocean LLC now owns 141 shares of the conglomerate's stock worth $29,000 after purchasing an additional 76 shares in the last quarter. Smallwood Wealth Investment Management LLC bought a new stake in shares of Danaher in the 1st quarter valued at about $31,000. Finally, Hurley Capital LLC purchased a new position in shares of Danaher in the 4th quarter worth approximately $34,000. 79.05% of the stock is owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

Insider Transactions at Danaher

In related news, EVP Christopher Paul Riley sold 15,805 shares of the firm's stock in a transaction dated Wednesday, April 30th. The shares were sold at an average price of $198.00, for a total value of $3,129,390.00. Following the transaction, the executive vice president directly owned 15,179 shares of the company's stock, valued at approximately $3,005,442. This trade represents a 51.01% decrease in their position. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which can be accessed through the SEC website. Also, Chairman Steven M. Rales sold 1,250,000 shares of the business's stock in a transaction that occurred on Monday, May 12th. The stock was sold at an average price of $196.74, for a total value of $245,925,000.00. Following the sale, the chairman owned 3,105,808 shares of the company's stock, valued at approximately $611,036,665.92. This trade represents a 28.70% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. 11.10% of the stock is owned by insiders.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

DHR has been the subject of a number of analyst reports. Leerink Partners increased their target price on shares of Danaher from $225.00 to $230.00 and gave the company an "outperform" rating in a research report on Wednesday, April 23rd. Robert W. Baird upped their price target on shares of Danaher from $225.00 to $226.00 and gave the company an "outperform" rating in a research note on Friday, July 18th. UBS Group lowered their price objective on shares of Danaher from $240.00 to $225.00 and set a "buy" rating for the company in a research note on Wednesday. Royal Bank Of Canada reissued an "outperform" rating and issued a $250.00 target price on shares of Danaher in a research report on Wednesday, April 23rd. Finally, The Goldman Sachs Group lowered their price target on Danaher from $260.00 to $240.00 and set a "neutral" rating for the company in a research report on Wednesday, April 23rd. Three equities research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and eighteen have assigned a buy rating to the company's stock. According to data from MarketBeat.com, the company presently has an average rating of "Moderate Buy" and an average price target of $247.61.

Danaher Price Performance

Shares of Danaher stock traded up $5.32 on Thursday, hitting $203.21. The company's stock had a trading volume of 7,410,271 shares, compared to its average volume of 3,878,889. The company has a market capitalization of $145.51 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 43.24, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 2.75 and a beta of 0.77. Danaher Corporation has a 1 year low of $171.00 and a 1 year high of $281.70. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.32, a quick ratio of 1.05 and a current ratio of 1.62. The firm has a fifty day moving average price of $195.94 and a 200-day moving average price of $204.39.

Danaher (NYSE:DHR - Get Free Report) last posted its quarterly earnings data on Tuesday, July 22nd. The conglomerate reported $1.80 EPS for the quarter, beating analysts' consensus estimates of $1.64 by $0.16. The business had revenue of $5.94 billion during the quarter, compared to analysts' expectations of $5.83 billion. Danaher had a return on equity of 10.70% and a net margin of 14.21%. The business's revenue was up 3.4% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same period in the previous year, the business earned $1.72 earnings per share. As a group, sell-side analysts anticipate that Danaher Corporation will post 7.63 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Danaher Announces Dividend

The business also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Friday, July 25th. Shareholders of record on Friday, June 27th will be issued a dividend of $0.32 per share. This represents a $1.28 annualized dividend and a yield of 0.63%. Danaher's payout ratio is 24.85%.

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.