Danaher Co. (NYSE:DHR) Shares Purchased by Commonwealth Equity Services LLC

Commonwealth Equity Services LLC boosted its holdings in shares of Danaher Co. (NYSE:DHR) by 4.3% during the 4th quarter, HoldingsChannel reports. The institutional investor owned 149,379 shares of the conglomerate’s stock after buying an additional 6,158 shares during the quarter. Commonwealth Equity Services LLC’s holdings in Danaher were worth $34,557,000 as of its most recent SEC filing.

Other hedge funds and other institutional investors also recently added to or reduced their stakes in the company. BKM Wealth Management LLC purchased a new stake in shares of Danaher during the fourth quarter valued at $27,000. Wetzel Investment Advisors Inc. acquired a new position in shares of Danaher in the fourth quarter valued at about $29,000. OFI Invest Asset Management purchased a new position in shares of Danaher in the third quarter worth about $30,000. Rakuten Securities Inc. acquired a new stake in shares of Danaher during the fourth quarter worth about $36,000. Finally, Financial Connections Group Inc. purchased a new stake in Danaher in the fourth quarter valued at approximately $41,000. 79.05% of the stock is currently owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

Analyst Ratings Changes

A number of equities analysts have issued reports on the stock. Raymond James raised their price target on shares of Danaher from $240.00 to $270.00 and gave the stock an “outperform” rating in a research report on Wednesday, January 31st. KeyCorp boosted their target price on shares of Danaher from $260.00 to $290.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a research report on Thursday, February 1st. Citigroup increased their price target on Danaher from $280.00 to $290.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a research report on Wednesday, April 24th. Robert W. Baird boosted their price objective on Danaher from $259.00 to $271.00 and gave the company an “outperform” rating in a report on Wednesday, April 24th. Finally, Royal Bank of Canada upped their target price on Danaher from $254.00 to $282.00 and gave the stock an “outperform” rating in a research note on Wednesday, January 31st. Six research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and nine have assigned a buy rating to the stock. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, Danaher presently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus target price of $267.31.

Danaher Trading Up 0.6 %

Shares of NYSE:DHR opened at $248.38 on Friday. The business’s 50 day moving average price is $248.48 and its 200-day moving average price is $232.27. Danaher Co. has a 1 year low of $182.09 and a 1 year high of $259.00. The firm has a market capitalization of $183.97 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 42.10, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 3.82 and a beta of 0.83. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.31, a current ratio of 1.85 and a quick ratio of 1.51.

Danaher (NYSE:DHR) last posted its quarterly earnings data on Tuesday, April 23rd. The conglomerate reported $1.92 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $1.72 by $0.20. The business had revenue of $5.80 billion for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $5.62 billion. Danaher had a net margin of 16.78% and a return on equity of 11.43%. The company’s revenue was down 2.6% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same period last year, the firm posted $2.36 earnings per share. On average, equities research analysts forecast that Danaher Co. will post 7.63 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Danaher Increases Dividend

The company also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Friday, April 26th. Shareholders of record on Thursday, March 28th were paid a dividend of $0.27 per share. This is a positive change from Danaher’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.24. This represents a $1.08 annualized dividend and a yield of 0.43%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Wednesday, March 27th. Danaher’s payout ratio is 18.31%.

Insider Buying and Selling at Danaher

In related news, SVP Georgeann Couchara sold 2,622 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Tuesday, February 13th. The stock was sold at an average price of $242.67, for a total transaction of $636,280.74. Following the completion of the sale, the senior vice president now directly owns 4,244 shares in the company, valued at $1,029,891.48. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which can be accessed through the SEC website. In other Danaher news, Director Alan G. Spoon sold 708 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Thursday, May 2nd. The shares were sold at an average price of $243.58, for a total value of $172,454.64. Following the transaction, the director now directly owns 116,202 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $28,304,483.16. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available at the SEC website. Also, SVP Georgeann Couchara sold 2,622 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Tuesday, February 13th. The shares were sold at an average price of $242.67, for a total value of $636,280.74. Following the completion of the sale, the senior vice president now owns 4,244 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $1,029,891.48. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders sold 107,273 shares of company stock valued at $26,813,819 over the last quarter. 11.10% of the stock is currently owned by insiders.

Danaher Profile

Danaher Corporation designs, manufactures, and markets professional, medical, industrial, and commercial products and services worldwide. The Biotechnology segments offers bioprocess technologies, consumables, and services that advance, accelerate, and integrate the development and manufacture of therapeutics; cell line and cell culture media development services; cell culture media, process liquids and buffers for manufacturing, chromatography resins, filtration technologies, aseptic fill finish; single-use hardware and consumables and services, such as the design and installation of full manufacturing suites; lab filtration, separation, and purification; lab-scale protein purification and analytical tools; reagents, membranes, and services; and healthcare filtration solutions.