IDEX (NYSE:IEX) Downgraded by StockNews.com

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

IEX has been the topic of several other research reports. Royal Bank of Canada reiterated an outperform rating and set a $255.00 price target on shares of IDEX in a research report on Thursday, March 21st. Citigroup increased their price target on shares of IDEX from $254.00 to $277.00 and gave the company a buy rating in a research note on Monday, April 8th. Stifel Nicolaus upgraded shares of IDEX from a hold rating to a buy rating and boosted their price objective for the stock from $215.00 to $265.00 in a research report on Thursday, February 8th. Robert W. Baird decreased their price objective on IDEX from $260.00 to $256.00 and set an outperform rating on the stock in a research report on Thursday, April 25th. Finally, Oppenheimer boosted their target price on IDEX from $245.00 to $252.00 and gave the stock an outperform rating in a research report on Thursday, April 18th. Two equities research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and six have assigned a buy rating to the company. According to MarketBeat, IDEX currently has a consensus rating of Moderate Buy and an average price target of $250.71.

IDEX Price Performance

Shares of NYSE IEX traded down $0.21 during mid-day trading on Thursday, hitting $220.42. 405,389 shares of the stock were exchanged, compared to its average volume of 354,231. IDEX has a twelve month low of $183.76 and a twelve month high of $246.36. The stock’s fifty day simple moving average is $235.22 and its two-hundred day simple moving average is $217.25. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.37, a quick ratio of 2.45 and a current ratio of 3.37. The company has a market cap of $16.68 billion, a P/E ratio of 29.00, a PEG ratio of 2.21 and a beta of 0.99.

IDEX (NYSE:IEX) last released its quarterly earnings results on Tuesday, April 23rd. The industrial products company reported $1.88 earnings per share for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $1.76 by $0.12. The firm had revenue of $801.00 million during the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $807.52 million. IDEX had a return on equity of 17.60% and a net margin of 17.89%. The business’s revenue was down 5.3% on a year-over-year basis. During the same period last year, the firm posted $2.09 EPS. As a group, analysts forecast that IDEX will post 8.33 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Institutional Investors Weigh In On IDEX

A number of institutional investors have recently made changes to their positions in IEX. Albert D Mason Inc. boosted its holdings in IDEX by 1.0% during the first quarter. Albert D Mason Inc. now owns 4,509 shares of the industrial products company’s stock worth $1,100,000 after buying an additional 45 shares during the last quarter. Commonwealth Equity Services LLC boosted its stake in IDEX by 1.3% during the 3rd quarter. Commonwealth Equity Services LLC now owns 4,289 shares of the industrial products company’s stock worth $892,000 after acquiring an additional 53 shares during the last quarter. DB Fitzpatrick & Co Inc grew its holdings in IDEX by 2.1% during the third quarter. DB Fitzpatrick & Co Inc now owns 2,766 shares of the industrial products company’s stock valued at $575,000 after purchasing an additional 56 shares during the period. Jacobson & Schmitt Advisors LLC increased its stake in IDEX by 5.0% in the third quarter. Jacobson & Schmitt Advisors LLC now owns 1,242 shares of the industrial products company’s stock valued at $258,000 after purchasing an additional 59 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Czech National Bank raised its holdings in IDEX by 0.5% in the first quarter. Czech National Bank now owns 13,306 shares of the industrial products company’s stock worth $3,247,000 after purchasing an additional 61 shares during the period. 97.96% of the stock is owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

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.