CHURCHILL MANAGEMENT Corp Reduces Stock Position in IDEX Co. (NYSE:IEX)

CHURCHILL MANAGEMENT Corp lessened its stake in shares of IDEX Co. (NYSE:IEX) by 1.0% in the first quarter, according to the company in its most recent 13F filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The institutional investor owned 23,668 shares of the industrial products company’s stock after selling 240 shares during the quarter. CHURCHILL MANAGEMENT Corp’s holdings in IDEX were worth $5,775,000 as of its most recent filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

A number of other hedge funds and other institutional investors have also recently added to or reduced their stakes in IEX. Cadent Capital Advisors LLC purchased a new stake in IDEX in the 1st quarter valued at about $212,000. Park Avenue Securities LLC grew its holdings in IDEX by 13.8% in the 1st quarter. Park Avenue Securities LLC now owns 2,293 shares of the industrial products company’s stock valued at $559,000 after buying an additional 278 shares during the period. Wedmont Private Capital purchased a new stake in IDEX in the 1st quarter valued at about $233,000. Czech National Bank grew its holdings in IDEX by 0.5% in the 1st quarter. Czech National Bank now owns 13,306 shares of the industrial products company’s stock valued at $3,247,000 after buying an additional 61 shares during the period. Finally, Mather Group LLC. purchased a new stake in IDEX in the 1st quarter valued at about $123,000. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 97.96% of the company’s stock.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

Several analysts have commented on the company. Royal Bank of Canada restated an “outperform” rating and issued a $255.00 price target on shares of IDEX in a report on Thursday, March 21st. Robert W. Baird decreased their target price on IDEX from $260.00 to $256.00 and set an “outperform” rating for the company in a report on Thursday, April 25th. Oppenheimer boosted their target price on IDEX from $245.00 to $252.00 and gave the stock an “outperform” rating in a report on Thursday, April 18th. Citigroup boosted their target price on IDEX from $254.00 to $277.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a report on Monday, April 8th. Finally, StockNews.com upgraded IDEX from a “hold” rating to a “buy” rating in a report on Saturday, May 18th. One investment analyst has rated the stock with a hold rating and seven have assigned a buy rating to the company. According to data from MarketBeat.com, the stock currently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus target price of $250.71.

IDEX Stock Performance

IDEX stock opened at $202.70 on Friday. The stock’s 50 day moving average price is $215.87 and its 200 day moving average price is $221.39. The firm has a market capitalization of $15.34 billion, a PE ratio of 26.67, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 2.04 and a beta of 0.99. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.37, a quick ratio of 2.45 and a current ratio of 3.37. IDEX Co. has a one year low of $183.76 and a one year high of $246.36.

IDEX (NYSE:IEX) last released its quarterly earnings results on Tuesday, April 23rd. The industrial products company reported $1.88 EPS for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $1.76 by $0.12. The firm had revenue of $801.00 million for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $807.52 million. IDEX had a return on equity of 17.60% and a net margin of 17.89%. IDEX’s revenue for the quarter was down 5.3% on a year-over-year basis. During the same period in the previous year, the company posted $2.09 EPS. As a group, sell-side analysts expect that IDEX Co. will post 8.31 EPS for the current fiscal year.

IDEX Dividend Announcement

The firm also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Friday, July 26th. Shareholders of record on Friday, July 12th will be given a $0.69 dividend. This represents a $2.76 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 1.36%. The ex-dividend date is Friday, July 12th. IDEX’s payout ratio is 36.32%.

IDEX 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.