IDEX Co. (NYSE:IEX) Given Consensus Recommendation of “Moderate Buy” by Brokerages

Shares of IDEX Co. (NYSE:IEX) have been assigned a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” from the eight analysts that are covering the company, Marketbeat Ratings reports. Two investment analysts have rated the stock with a hold recommendation and six have assigned a buy recommendation to the company. The average twelve-month price objective among brokerages that have issued a report on the stock in the last year is $241.71.

Several analysts have commented on the company. Stifel Nicolaus upped their price objective on IDEX from $244.00 to $256.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a research note on Wednesday, December 11th. Royal Bank of Canada cut their target price on IDEX from $256.00 to $245.00 and set an “outperform” rating for the company in a research note on Thursday, February 6th. DA Davidson cut their target price on IDEX from $225.00 to $215.00 and set a “neutral” rating for the company in a research note on Wednesday, February 19th. Finally, Citigroup cut their target price on IDEX from $269.00 to $267.00 and set a “buy” rating for the company in a research note on Monday, January 13th.

IDEX Stock Up 2.4 %

IEX opened at $182.47 on Monday. The business has a 50 day moving average price of $202.65 and a two-hundred day moving average price of $210.65. The company has a quick ratio of 1.85, a current ratio of 2.53 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.49. The company has a market cap of $13.83 billion, a PE ratio of 27.44, a P/E/G ratio of 1.98 and a beta of 0.99. IDEX has a 52 week low of $177.71 and a 52 week high of $246.36.

IDEX (NYSE:IEX) last posted its quarterly earnings data on Tuesday, February 4th. The industrial products company reported $2.04 EPS for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $2.03 by $0.01. IDEX had a return on equity of 16.08% and a net margin of 15.45%. As a group, research analysts anticipate that IDEX will post 8.26 EPS for the current year.

Hedge Funds Weigh In On IDEX

Several hedge funds have recently bought and sold shares of IEX. Wellington Management Group LLP increased its stake in IDEX by 108.4% in the 3rd quarter. Wellington Management Group LLP now owns 2,830,929 shares of the industrial products company’s stock valued at $607,234,000 after purchasing an additional 1,472,456 shares in the last quarter. Norges Bank purchased a new position in IDEX in the 4th quarter valued at approximately $217,658,000. Price T Rowe Associates Inc. MD increased its stake in IDEX by 8.2% in the 4th quarter. Price T Rowe Associates Inc. MD now owns 3,666,777 shares of the industrial products company’s stock valued at $767,421,000 after purchasing an additional 277,964 shares in the last quarter. Champlain Investment Partners LLC increased its position in IDEX by 28.8% during the third quarter. Champlain Investment Partners LLC now owns 1,223,676 shares of the industrial products company’s stock worth $262,479,000 after buying an additional 273,460 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Allianz Asset Management GmbH increased its position in IDEX by 133.2% during the fourth quarter. Allianz Asset Management GmbH now owns 406,637 shares of the industrial products company’s stock worth $85,105,000 after buying an additional 232,255 shares in the last quarter. 97.96% of the stock is owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

About IDEX

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.