IDEX Co. (NYSE:IEX) Receives Average Rating of "Moderate Buy" from Analysts

Shares of IDEX Co. (NYSE:IEX - Get Free Report) have earned an average rating of "Moderate Buy" from the eight ratings firms that are covering the stock, MarketBeat reports. Two equities research analysts have rated the stock with a hold recommendation and six have assigned a buy recommendation to the company. The average 1 year price objective among brokerages that have issued a report on the stock in the last year is $212.50.

Several brokerages recently weighed in on IEX. Stifel Nicolaus increased their target price on IDEX from $192.00 to $208.00 and gave the company a "buy" rating in a report on Friday, May 2nd. Citigroup lowered their price target on IDEX from $264.00 to $201.00 and set a "buy" rating for the company in a research report on Monday, April 14th. DA Davidson lowered their price target on IDEX from $225.00 to $215.00 and set a "neutral" rating for the company in a research report on Wednesday, February 19th. Mizuho set a $185.00 price target on IDEX in a research report on Friday, May 16th. Finally, Royal Bank of Canada upped their price target on IDEX from $206.00 to $208.00 and gave the company an "outperform" rating in a research report on Friday, May 2nd.

Institutional Trading of IDEX

Large investors have recently modified their holdings of the company. Dimensional Fund Advisors LP lifted its holdings in IDEX by 13.0% during the fourth quarter. Dimensional Fund Advisors LP now owns 640,717 shares of the industrial products company's stock worth $134,096,000 after buying an additional 73,540 shares during the period. Snyder Capital Management L P lifted its holdings in IDEX by 12.2% during the fourth quarter. Snyder Capital Management L P now owns 480,193 shares of the industrial products company's stock worth $100,500,000 after buying an additional 52,259 shares during the period. Asset Management One Co. Ltd. lifted its holdings in IDEX by 4.2% during the fourth quarter. Asset Management One Co. Ltd. now owns 30,250 shares of the industrial products company's stock worth $6,386,000 after buying an additional 1,209 shares during the period. Assetmark Inc. lifted its holdings in IDEX by 129.1% during 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, Barclays PLC lifted its holdings in shares of IDEX by 1.2% during the 3rd quarter. Barclays PLC now owns 1,177,645 shares of the industrial products company's stock valued at $252,603,000 after purchasing an additional 14,360 shares during the last quarter. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 97.96% of the company's stock.

IDEX Stock Performance

Shares of NYSE IEX traded up $1.16 during mid-day trading on Friday, hitting $181.86. The company had a trading volume of 551,576 shares, compared to its average volume of 584,427. The company has a market capitalization of $13.74 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 27.35, a P/E/G ratio of 1.98 and a beta of 1.07. IDEX has a 1 year low of $153.36 and a 1 year high of $238.22. The company has a current ratio of 2.53, a quick ratio of 1.85 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.49. The stock's 50-day moving average price is $176.66 and its 200-day moving average price is $198.23.

IDEX (NYSE:IEX - Get Free Report) last posted its quarterly earnings data on Thursday, May 1st. The industrial products company reported $1.75 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating 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 last year, the company earned $1.88 earnings per share. The firm's quarterly revenue was up 1.7% on a year-over-year basis. On average, sell-side analysts forecast that IDEX will post 8.26 earnings per share for the current year.

IDEX Increases Dividend

The firm also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Friday, May 30th. Stockholders of record on Monday, May 19th will be paid a dividend of $0.71 per share. This is a boost from IDEX's previous quarterly dividend of $0.69. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Monday, May 19th. This represents a $2.84 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 1.56%. IDEX's dividend payout ratio is currently 45.01%.

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.