Cognex Co. Declares Quarterly Dividend of $0.08 (NASDAQ:CGNX)

Cognex Co. (NASDAQ:CGNX) declared a quarterly dividend on Wednesday, February 12th,RTT News reports. Shareholders of record on Thursday, February 27th will be paid a dividend of 0.08 per share by the scientific and technical instruments company on Thursday, March 13th. This represents a $0.32 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 0.82%.

Cognex has raised its dividend by an average of 7.6% per year over the last three years. Cognex has a dividend payout ratio of 24.8% meaning its dividend is sufficiently covered by earnings. Equities research analysts expect Cognex to earn $0.64 per share next year, which means the company should continue to be able to cover its $0.32 annual dividend with an expected future payout ratio of 50.0%.

Cognex Trading Down 0.9 %

Shares of NASDAQ CGNX opened at $39.25 on Thursday. The company has a market cap of $6.73 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 75.48 and a beta of 1.40. The stock’s 50 day simple moving average is $37.96 and its 200 day simple moving average is $39.22. Cognex has a 12-month low of $34.98 and a 12-month high of $53.13.

Cognex (NASDAQ:CGNX) last posted its earnings results on Wednesday, February 12th. The scientific and technical instruments company reported $0.14 EPS for the quarter, missing the consensus estimate of $0.15 by ($0.01). Cognex had a return on equity of 5.28% and a net margin of 10.10%. As a group, equities analysts forecast that Cognex will post 0.38 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

CGNX has been the topic of several recent analyst reports. Needham & Company LLC cut their target price on Cognex from $50.00 to $47.00 and set a “buy” rating on the stock in a research note on Friday, November 1st. Truist Financial lifted their price objective on shares of Cognex from $42.00 to $43.00 and gave the company a “hold” rating in a research note on Thursday, January 16th. Cantor Fitzgerald upgraded shares of Cognex to a “strong-buy” rating in a research report on Friday, December 20th. Stephens restated an “overweight” rating and set a $55.00 price target on shares of Cognex in a research report on Thursday, January 2nd. Finally, Citigroup reduced their price target on shares of Cognex from $44.00 to $42.00 and set a “neutral” rating for the company in a research note on Monday, January 13th. One analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, five have issued a hold rating, six have given a buy rating and one has issued a strong buy rating to the company’s stock. Based on data from MarketBeat, Cognex has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average price target of $47.92.

Insiders Place Their Bets

In related news, CTO Joerg Kuechen sold 2,934 shares of the stock in a transaction on Thursday, December 12th. The stock was sold at an average price of $37.75, for a total value of $110,758.50. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available at the SEC website. Also, Director Anthony Sun sold 26,000 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction dated Friday, November 22nd. The stock was sold at an average price of $40.03, for a total value of $1,040,780.00. Following the sale, the director now owns 26,608 shares in the company, valued at approximately $1,065,118.24. The trade was a 49.42 % decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. 1.10% of the stock is currently owned by company insiders.

About Cognex

Cognex Corporation provides machine vision products that capture and analyze visual information to automate manufacturing and distribution tasks worldwide. Its machine vision products are used to automate the manufacturing and tracking of discrete items, including mobile phones, electric vehicle batteries, and e-commerce packages by locating, identifying, inspecting, and measuring them during the manufacturing or distribution process.