Johnson Investment Counsel Inc. Purchases 20,481 Shares of IDEX Corporation $IEX

Johnson Investment Counsel Inc. grew its stake in shares of IDEX Corporation (NYSE:IEX) by 7.1% during the second quarter, according to the company in its most recent 13F filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission. The fund owned 310,743 shares of the industrial products company’s stock after acquiring an additional 20,481 shares during the quarter. Johnson Investment Counsel Inc.’s holdings in IDEX were worth $54,557,000 as of its most recent SEC filing.

Other institutional investors have also recently made changes to their positions in the company. Thurston Springer Miller Herd & Titak Inc. boosted its holdings in shares of IDEX by 257.5% during the 2nd quarter. Thurston Springer Miller Herd & Titak Inc. now owns 143 shares of the industrial products company’s stock valued at $25,000 after acquiring an additional 103 shares during the last quarter. American National Bank & Trust purchased a new stake in shares of IDEX during the 2nd quarter valued at about $25,000. UMB Bank n.a. boosted its holdings in shares of IDEX by 63.5% during the 1st quarter. UMB Bank n.a. now owns 224 shares of the industrial products company’s stock valued at $41,000 after acquiring an additional 87 shares during the last quarter. Steph & Co. purchased a new stake in shares of IDEX during the 2nd quarter valued at about $42,000. Finally, SVB Wealth LLC purchased a new stake in shares of IDEX during the 1st quarter valued at about $56,000. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 97.96% of the company’s stock.

Analyst Ratings Changes

A number of analysts have recently issued reports on the stock. Oppenheimer set a $210.00 price target on shares of IDEX in a report on Tuesday. Weiss Ratings reaffirmed a “hold (c-)” rating on shares of IDEX in a report on Wednesday. Stifel Nicolaus dropped their price objective on shares of IDEX from $238.00 to $204.00 and set a “buy” rating on the stock in a report on Thursday, July 31st. Citigroup raised their price objective on shares of IDEX from $208.00 to $216.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a report on Monday, July 14th. Finally, DA Davidson set a $180.00 price objective on shares of IDEX and gave the stock a “neutral” rating in a report on Monday, August 4th. Five equities research analysts have rated the stock with a Buy rating and two have issued a Hold rating to the stock. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, the company has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus target price of $201.43.

IDEX Price Performance

NYSE IEX opened at $161.12 on Friday. IDEX Corporation has a 12 month low of $153.36 and a 12 month high of $238.22. The stock has a market cap of $12.13 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 26.03, a PEG ratio of 1.70 and a beta of 1.04. The company’s 50 day moving average is $163.12 and its two-hundred day moving average is $172.70. The company has a current ratio of 3.05, a quick ratio of 2.13 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.46.

IDEX (NYSE:IEX) last released its earnings results on Friday, December 16th. The industrial products company reported $1.79 EPS for the quarter. IDEX had a net margin of 14.05% and a return on equity of 15.16%. The company had revenue of $712.00 million for the quarter. As a group, research analysts anticipate that IDEX Corporation will post 8.26 earnings per share for the current year.

IDEX announced that its board has approved a share repurchase program on Thursday, September 18th that permits the company to buyback $1.00 billion in outstanding shares. This buyback authorization permits the industrial products company to reacquire up to 8.3% of its stock through open market purchases. Stock buyback programs are often an indication that the company’s management believes its shares are undervalued.

IDEX Dividend Announcement

The company also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Friday, October 24th. Shareholders of record on Friday, October 10th will be paid a dividend of $0.71 per share. The ex-dividend date is Friday, October 10th. This represents a $2.84 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 1.8%. IDEX’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is presently 45.88%.

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.