Danaher Co. (NYSE:DHR) Short Interest Up 7.3% in November

Danaher Co. (NYSE:DHR) was the recipient of a large increase in short interest in November. As of November 30th, there was short interest totalling 5,420,000 shares, an increase of 7.3% from the November 15th total of 5,050,000 shares. Based on an average daily volume of 2,740,000 shares, the short-interest ratio is presently 2.0 days. Approximately 0.8% of the company’s shares are sold short.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

A number of analysts have recently issued reports on the company. Raymond James reduced their target price on Danaher from $310.00 to $300.00 and set an “outperform” rating for the company in a report on Wednesday, October 23rd. UBS Group decreased their price objective on Danaher from $309.00 to $305.00 and set a “buy” rating for the company in a research report on Wednesday, October 23rd. Robert W. Baird dropped their target price on Danaher from $278.00 to $277.00 and set an “outperform” rating on the stock in a report on Wednesday, October 23rd. StockNews.com cut shares of Danaher from a “buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a report on Saturday. Finally, Stifel Nicolaus upped their price objective on shares of Danaher from $250.00 to $265.00 and gave the company a “hold” rating in a research note on Wednesday, October 23rd. Five investment analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and fifteen have issued a buy rating to the company’s stock. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, the stock has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus price target of $287.95.

Danaher Stock Down 0.3 %

NYSE DHR traded down $0.65 during trading on Tuesday, hitting $233.53. 3,190,444 shares of the company traded hands, compared to its average volume of 2,793,669. Danaher has a 12 month low of $222.53 and a 12 month high of $281.70. The business has a fifty day simple moving average of $246.23 and a 200 day simple moving average of $257.30. The company has a market capitalization of $168.67 billion, a P/E ratio of 44.72, a PEG ratio of 4.33 and a beta of 0.83. The company has a current ratio of 1.37, a quick ratio of 1.01 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.32.

Danaher (NYSE:DHR) last posted its earnings results on Tuesday, October 22nd. The conglomerate reported $1.71 earnings per share for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $1.57 by $0.14. Danaher had a return on equity of 10.62% and a net margin of 16.39%. The firm had revenue of $5.80 billion during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $5.59 billion. During the same period in the previous year, the company earned $2.02 EPS. The company’s revenue for the quarter was up 3.1% on a year-over-year basis. As a group, sell-side analysts predict that Danaher will post 7.5 EPS for the current year.

Danaher Dividend Announcement

The company also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Friday, January 31st. Investors of record on Friday, December 27th will be issued a dividend of $0.27 per share. This represents a $1.08 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 0.46%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Friday, December 27th. Danaher’s dividend payout ratio is currently 20.61%.

Institutional Inflows and Outflows

Several institutional investors have recently bought and sold shares of the company. CarsonAllaria Wealth Management Ltd. acquired a new stake in shares of Danaher in the second quarter valued at about $25,000. nVerses Capital LLC bought a new stake in Danaher during the 2nd quarter valued at approximately $25,000. Teachers Insurance & Annuity Association of America acquired a new stake in Danaher in the 3rd quarter valued at approximately $39,000. MidAtlantic Capital Management Inc. bought a new position in Danaher in the 3rd quarter worth approximately $40,000. Finally, FSA Wealth Management LLC acquired a new position in shares of Danaher during the third quarter worth approximately $50,000. Institutional investors own 79.05% of the company’s stock.

Danaher Company 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.