IDEX Co. (NYSE:IEX) Short Interest Down 5.8% in March

IDEX Co. (NYSE:IEX - Get Free Report) saw a large drop in short interest during the month of March. As of March 15th, there was short interest totalling 805,500 shares, a drop of 5.8% from the February 29th total of 855,300 shares. Based on an average daily trading volume, of 389,600 shares, the days-to-cover ratio is currently 2.1 days. Currently, 1.1% of the shares of the company are sold short.

Hedge Funds Weigh In On IDEX

Several large investors have recently bought and sold shares of the stock. Vanguard Group Inc. increased its stake in IDEX by 0.6% during the 1st quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 8,802,857 shares of the industrial products company's stock valued at $1,687,772,000 after buying an additional 53,138 shares during the period. Price T Rowe Associates Inc. MD increased its stake in IDEX by 12.7% during the 4th quarter. Price T Rowe Associates Inc. MD now owns 7,409,706 shares of the industrial products company's stock valued at $1,608,722,000 after buying an additional 833,772 shares during the period. Wellington Management Group LLP increased its stake in IDEX by 3.9% during the 1st quarter. Wellington Management Group LLP now owns 3,106,765 shares of the industrial products company's stock valued at $595,660,000 after buying an additional 117,605 shares during the period. State Street Corp increased its stake in IDEX by 2.2% during the 2nd quarter. State Street Corp now owns 2,993,760 shares of the industrial products company's stock valued at $644,437,000 after buying an additional 64,316 shares during the period. Finally, Impax Asset Management Group plc grew its stake in shares of IDEX by 4.0% in the 4th 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 last quarter. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 97.96% of the company's stock.

IDEX Stock Performance

NYSE:IEX traded down $3.04 during mid-day trading on Monday, hitting $240.98. The stock had a trading volume of 230,192 shares, compared to its average volume of 393,143. The stock has a market capitalization of $18.24 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 31.13, a P/E/G ratio of 2.44 and a beta of 0.97. The company has a 50 day simple moving average of $230.60 and a 200-day simple moving average of $213.42. IDEX has a 52 week low of $183.76 and a 52 week high of $246.36. The company has a current ratio of 2.89, a quick ratio of 2.05 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.37.

IDEX (NYSE:IEX - Get Free Report) last issued its quarterly earnings data on Tuesday, February 6th. The industrial products company reported $1.83 earnings per share for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $1.78 by $0.05. The firm had revenue of $788.90 million for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $767.96 million. IDEX had a net margin of 18.21% and a return on equity of 18.56%. IDEX's quarterly revenue was down 2.7% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same period last year, the firm posted $2.01 EPS. On average, research analysts expect that IDEX will post 8.35 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

A number of research firms have recently issued reports on IEX. Royal Bank of Canada restated an "outperform" rating and issued a $255.00 price target on shares of IDEX in a research report on Thursday, March 21st. Stifel Nicolaus upgraded shares of IDEX from a "hold" rating to a "buy" rating and raised their price target for the stock from $215.00 to $265.00 in a research report on Thursday, February 8th. Two equities research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and five have assigned a buy rating to the company. According to data from MarketBeat, the company currently has an average rating of "Moderate Buy" and an average price target of $235.56.

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.

This instant news alert was generated by narrative science technology and financial data from MarketBeat in order to provide readers with the fastest and most accurate reporting. This story was reviewed by MarketBeat's editorial team prior to publication. Please send any questions or comments about this story to contact@marketbeat.com.