1,461 Shares in IDEX Co. (NYSE:IEX) Acquired by Argent Trust Co

Argent Trust Co acquired a new stake in IDEX Co. (NYSE:IEX) in the second quarter, according to the company in its most recent Form 13F filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission. The firm acquired 1,461 shares of the industrial products company’s stock, valued at approximately $294,000.

Several other hedge funds and other institutional investors have also recently modified their holdings of the company. Principal Securities Inc. bought a new stake in IDEX during the 4th quarter valued at $61,000. Dimensional Fund Advisors LP increased its position in shares of IDEX by 6.0% during the fourth quarter. Dimensional Fund Advisors LP now owns 369,268 shares of the industrial products company’s stock worth $80,172,000 after acquiring an additional 20,785 shares in the last quarter. UBS Group AG raised its holdings in shares of IDEX by 177.3% in the 4th quarter. UBS Group AG now owns 57,255 shares of the industrial products company’s stock worth $12,431,000 after acquiring an additional 36,606 shares during the last quarter. Corient Private Wealth LLC lifted its position in IDEX by 3.6% in the 4th quarter. Corient Private Wealth LLC now owns 68,187 shares of the industrial products company’s stock valued at $14,804,000 after acquiring an additional 2,399 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Quest Partners LLC acquired a new position in IDEX during the 4th quarter valued at about $160,000. Institutional investors own 97.96% of the company’s stock.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

Several brokerages have recently commented on IEX. TD Cowen lowered their price objective on IDEX from $240.00 to $230.00 and set a “buy” rating for the company in a research note on Wednesday, August 7th. DA Davidson dropped their price objective on IDEX from $220.00 to $210.00 and set a “neutral” rating on the stock in a research note on Monday, August 5th. Oppenheimer reduced their target price on shares of IDEX from $245.00 to $238.00 and set an “outperform” rating for the company in a research note on Monday, August 5th. StockNews.com lowered shares of IDEX from a “buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a research report on Thursday, July 11th. Finally, Royal Bank of Canada reduced their price objective on shares of IDEX from $250.00 to $236.00 and set an “outperform” rating for the company in a research report on Friday, August 2nd. Four analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and six have given a buy rating to the company. According to data from MarketBeat.com, IDEX presently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus price target of $233.50.

IDEX Stock Performance

Shares of IEX stock opened at $208.73 on Friday. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.36, a quick ratio of 2.52 and a current ratio of 3.41. The firm has a market cap of $15.80 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 27.46, a P/E/G ratio of 2.09 and a beta of 0.95. IDEX Co. has a 52 week low of $183.76 and a 52 week high of $246.36. The firm’s 50-day simple moving average is $200.94 and its two-hundred day simple moving average is $214.00.

IDEX (NYSE:IEX) last posted its quarterly earnings data on Wednesday, July 31st. The industrial products company reported $2.06 EPS for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $2.04 by $0.02. IDEX had a return on equity of 16.87% and a net margin of 18.19%. The business had revenue of $807.20 million for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $828.15 million. During the same quarter in the prior year, the business earned $2.18 earnings per share. IDEX’s revenue for the quarter was down 4.6% on a year-over-year basis. As a group, equities analysts forecast that IDEX Co. will post 7.88 earnings per share for the current year.

IDEX Announces Dividend

The firm also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Friday, October 25th. Shareholders of record on Friday, October 11th will be issued a dividend of $0.69 per share. This represents a $2.76 annualized dividend and a yield of 1.32%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Friday, October 11th. IDEX’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is presently 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.