IDEX (NYSE:IEX) Downgraded by StockNews.com to “Hold”

StockNews.com downgraded shares of IDEX (NYSE:IEX) from a buy rating to a hold rating in a research report sent to investors on Wednesday.

A number of other research analysts have also recently weighed in on IEX. Oppenheimer lifted their price objective on shares of IDEX from $245.00 to $252.00 and gave the company an outperform rating in a report on Thursday, April 18th. Stifel Nicolaus raised shares of IDEX from a hold rating to a buy rating and boosted their target price for the stock from $215.00 to $265.00 in a research note on Thursday, February 8th. Citigroup boosted their target price on shares of IDEX from $254.00 to $277.00 and gave the stock a buy rating in a research note on Monday, April 8th. Finally, Royal Bank of Canada reissued an outperform rating and set a $255.00 target price on shares of IDEX in a research note on Thursday, March 21st. Two research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and six have issued a buy rating to the company. According to MarketBeat.com, the company currently has a consensus rating of Moderate Buy and an average target price of $241.67.

IDEX Trading Down 1.2 %

Shares of IDEX stock opened at $220.66 on Wednesday. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.37, a current ratio of 3.37 and a quick ratio of 2.05. The firm has a fifty day moving average price of $236.36 and a 200 day moving average price of $216.75. IDEX has a 1 year low of $183.76 and a 1 year high of $246.36. The stock has a market cap of $16.70 billion, a PE ratio of 29.03, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 2.23 and a beta of 0.97.

IDEX (NYSE:IEX) last released its quarterly earnings data on Tuesday, April 23rd. The industrial products company reported $1.88 earnings per share for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $1.76 by $0.12. IDEX had a net margin of 17.89% and a return on equity of 17.60%. The company had revenue of $801.00 million during the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $807.52 million. During the same quarter in the previous year, the company earned $2.09 earnings per share. The firm’s revenue for the quarter was down 5.3% on a year-over-year basis. Equities research analysts predict that IDEX will post 8.34 earnings per share for the current year.

Institutional Trading of IDEX

Several large investors have recently bought and sold shares of the business. Impax Asset Management Group plc grew its stake in IDEX by 4.0% during the 4th quarter. Impax Asset Management Group plc now owns 2,190,741 shares of the industrial products company’s stock valued at $475,632,000 after acquiring an additional 84,502 shares in the last quarter. Barclays PLC grew its stake in IDEX by 3.3% during the 3rd quarter. Barclays PLC now owns 1,143,583 shares of the industrial products company’s stock valued at $237,890,000 after acquiring an additional 36,928 shares in the last quarter. Norges Bank purchased a new stake in IDEX during the 4th quarter valued at about $237,425,000. Northern Trust Corp grew its stake in shares of IDEX by 6.1% in the 3rd quarter. Northern Trust Corp now owns 785,716 shares of the industrial products company’s stock valued at $163,445,000 after buying an additional 45,120 shares during the period. Finally, Alecta Tjanstepension Omsesidigt grew its stake in shares of IDEX by 420.8% in the 4th quarter. Alecta Tjanstepension Omsesidigt now owns 781,172 shares of the industrial products company’s stock valued at $169,600,000 after buying an additional 631,172 shares during the period. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 97.96% of the company’s stock.

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.