IDEX (NYSE:IEX) Upgraded to “Buy” at StockNews.com

StockNews.com upgraded shares of IDEX (NYSE:IEX) from a hold rating to a buy rating in a report published on Tuesday morning.

Several other equities research analysts have also weighed in on IEX. Royal Bank of Canada reiterated an outperform rating and issued a $255.00 price objective on shares of IDEX in a research note on Thursday, March 21st. Stifel Nicolaus upgraded IDEX from a hold rating to a buy rating and upped their price objective for the company from $215.00 to $265.00 in a research note on Thursday, February 8th. Finally, Citigroup increased their price target on IDEX from $254.00 to $277.00 and gave the stock a buy rating in a research report on Monday, April 8th. One investment analyst has rated the stock with a hold rating and six have issued a buy rating to the stock. Based on data from MarketBeat, the stock has a consensus rating of Moderate Buy and an average target price of $238.78.

IDEX Trading Up 0.4 %

IDEX stock opened at $227.04 on Tuesday. The business has a 50 day moving average price of $236.41 and a two-hundred day moving average price of $216.02. The company has a quick ratio of 2.05, a current ratio of 2.89 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.37. The stock has a market cap of $17.18 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 28.96, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 2.27 and a beta of 0.97. IDEX has a 12 month low of $183.76 and a 12 month high of $246.36.

IDEX (NYSE:IEX) last released 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. IDEX had a return on equity of 18.56% and a net margin of 18.21%. The company had revenue of $788.90 million for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $767.96 million. During the same period in the prior year, the company posted $2.01 EPS. The company’s revenue was down 2.7% compared to the same quarter last year. As a group, equities analysts forecast that IDEX will post 8.34 EPS for the current year.

Institutional Investors Weigh In On IDEX

A number of large investors have recently bought and sold shares of IEX. Nordea Investment Management AB boosted its position in IDEX by 1,196.4% in the 4th quarter. Nordea Investment Management AB now owns 135,825 shares of the industrial products company’s stock valued at $29,598,000 after buying an additional 125,348 shares during the last quarter. Impax Asset Management Group plc boosted its position in 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 valued at $475,632,000 after buying an additional 84,502 shares during the last quarter. Lincoln National Corp boosted its position in IDEX by 7.1% in the 3rd quarter. Lincoln National Corp now owns 1,564 shares of the industrial products company’s stock valued at $325,000 after buying an additional 104 shares during the last quarter. Deutsche Bank AG boosted its position in IDEX by 13.3% in the 3rd quarter. Deutsche Bank AG now owns 244,610 shares of the industrial products company’s stock valued at $50,884,000 after buying an additional 28,661 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Raymond James & Associates boosted its position in IDEX by 11.2% in the 4th quarter. Raymond James & Associates now owns 76,465 shares of the industrial products company’s stock valued at $16,601,000 after buying an additional 7,684 shares during the last quarter. 97.96% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors.

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.