Sepio Capital LP Lowers Holdings in IDEX Co. (NYSE:IEX)

Sepio Capital LP decreased its holdings in IDEX Co. (NYSE:IEX) by 3.2% in the 4th quarter, according to the company in its most recent Form 13F filing with the SEC. The firm owned 3,507 shares of the industrial products company’s stock after selling 116 shares during the quarter. Sepio Capital LP’s holdings in IDEX were worth $761,000 at the end of the most recent reporting period.

Several other hedge funds and other institutional investors have also made changes to their positions in IEX. Private Advisor Group LLC raised its holdings in IDEX by 85.9% in the third quarter. Private Advisor Group LLC now owns 2,272 shares of the industrial products company’s stock valued at $473,000 after acquiring an additional 1,050 shares in the last quarter. NBC Securities Inc. acquired a new stake in IDEX in the third quarter valued at approximately $314,000. Ieq Capital LLC raised its holdings in IDEX by 14.6% in the third quarter. Ieq Capital LLC now owns 1,160 shares of the industrial products company’s stock valued at $241,000 after acquiring an additional 148 shares in the last quarter. Lincoln National Corp raised its holdings in IDEX by 7.1% in the third quarter. Lincoln National Corp now owns 1,564 shares of the industrial products company’s stock valued at $325,000 after acquiring an additional 104 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Victory Capital Management Inc. raised its holdings in IDEX by 11.7% in the third quarter. Victory Capital Management Inc. now owns 62,392 shares of the industrial products company’s stock valued at $12,979,000 after acquiring an additional 6,526 shares in the last quarter. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 97.96% of the company’s stock.

Analyst Ratings Changes

IEX has been the topic of several analyst reports. Royal Bank of Canada reaffirmed an “outperform” rating and issued a $255.00 target price on shares of IDEX in a report on Thursday, March 21st. Robert W. Baird reduced their target price on shares of IDEX from $260.00 to $256.00 and set an “outperform” rating on the stock in a report on Thursday, April 25th. Oppenheimer raised their price objective on shares of IDEX from $245.00 to $252.00 and gave the stock an “outperform” rating in a report on Thursday, April 18th. Stifel Nicolaus raised shares of IDEX from a “hold” rating to a “buy” rating and raised their price objective for the stock from $215.00 to $265.00 in a report on Thursday, February 8th. Finally, Citigroup raised their price objective on shares of IDEX from $254.00 to $277.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a report on Monday, April 8th. One analyst has rated the stock with a hold rating and seven have assigned a buy rating to the stock. According to data from MarketBeat, the company presently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $250.71.

IDEX Price Performance

IDEX stock traded down $0.39 during mid-day trading on Friday, reaching $215.15. The company had a trading volume of 493,996 shares, compared to its average volume of 409,066. The stock’s 50-day simple moving average is $230.14 and its 200-day simple moving average is $220.37. IDEX Co. has a 1 year low of $183.76 and a 1 year high of $246.36. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.37, a current ratio of 3.37 and a quick ratio of 2.45. The company has a market capitalization of $16.28 billion, a P/E ratio of 28.31, a P/E/G ratio of 2.16 and a beta of 0.99.

IDEX (NYSE:IEX) last released its quarterly earnings data on Tuesday, April 23rd. The industrial products company reported $1.88 earnings per share for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $1.76 by $0.12. The firm had revenue of $801.00 million during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $807.52 million. IDEX had a return on equity of 17.60% and a net margin of 17.89%. IDEX’s quarterly revenue was down 5.3% on a year-over-year basis. During the same period last year, the business posted $2.09 EPS. On average, equities analysts predict that IDEX Co. will post 8.31 EPS for the current year.

IDEX Increases Dividend

The firm also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Friday, May 31st. Shareholders of record on Friday, May 17th will be given a dividend of $0.69 per share. The ex-dividend date is Thursday, May 16th. This represents a $2.76 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 1.28%. This is a boost from IDEX’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.64. IDEX’s payout ratio is presently 36.32%.

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.