AMETEK (NYSE:AME) Stock Rating Lowered by StockNews.com

StockNews.com cut shares of AMETEK (NYSE:AME) from a buy rating to a hold rating in a research note published on Saturday.

AME has been the subject of several other research reports. Mizuho raised their price target on shares of AMETEK from $190.00 to $200.00 and gave the company an “outperform” rating in a research report on Friday, November 1st. Truist Financial raised their price target on shares of AMETEK from $221.00 to $222.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a research report on Thursday, January 16th. KeyCorp raised their price target on shares of AMETEK from $205.00 to $215.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a research report on Friday, November 22nd. Robert W. Baird reduced their price target on shares of AMETEK from $200.00 to $197.00 and set a “neutral” rating for the company in a research report on Wednesday, February 5th. Finally, Bank of America raised shares of AMETEK from a “neutral” rating to a “buy” rating and raised their price target for the company from $195.00 to $225.00 in a research report on Monday, December 16th. One investment analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, three have given a hold rating, seven have assigned a buy rating and one has assigned a strong buy rating to the stock. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, the company currently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus price target of $204.67.

AMETEK Stock Performance

Shares of AME opened at $189.18 on Friday. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.15, a current ratio of 1.24 and a quick ratio of 0.75. AMETEK has a one year low of $149.03 and a one year high of $198.33. The company has a 50-day simple moving average of $183.25 and a two-hundred day simple moving average of $179.19. The firm has a market capitalization of $43.64 billion, a PE ratio of 31.90, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 2.73 and a beta of 1.16.

AMETEK (NYSE:AME) last released its earnings results on Tuesday, February 4th. The technology company reported $1.87 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $1.85 by $0.02. AMETEK had a net margin of 19.83% and a return on equity of 16.94%. The firm had revenue of $1.76 billion during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $1.82 billion. During the same period last year, the business earned $1.68 earnings per share. The business’s revenue was up 1.8% on a year-over-year basis. On average, analysts anticipate that AMETEK will post 7.15 EPS for the current fiscal year.

AMETEK announced that its Board of Directors has initiated a share repurchase plan on Friday, February 7th that allows the company to buyback $1.25 billion in shares. This buyback authorization allows the technology company to reacquire up to 2.9% of its shares through open market purchases. Shares buyback plans are generally an indication that the company’s board of directors believes its stock is undervalued.

AMETEK Increases Dividend

The firm also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Monday, March 31st. Stockholders of record on Friday, March 14th will be given a dividend of $0.31 per share. This is an increase from AMETEK’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.28. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Friday, March 14th. This represents a $1.24 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 0.66%. AMETEK’s payout ratio is presently 20.91%.

Institutional Investors Weigh In On AMETEK

Hedge funds have recently modified their holdings of the business. Vanguard Group Inc. lifted its stake in shares of AMETEK by 1.1% during the 4th quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 26,147,772 shares of the technology company’s stock valued at $4,713,397,000 after buying an additional 282,208 shares in the last quarter. State Street Corp lifted its stake in shares of AMETEK by 0.3% during the 3rd quarter. State Street Corp now owns 9,220,376 shares of the technology company’s stock valued at $1,583,231,000 after buying an additional 24,072 shares in the last quarter. FMR LLC lifted its stake in AMETEK by 1.1% in the 4th quarter. FMR LLC now owns 8,956,329 shares of the technology company’s stock worth $1,614,468,000 after purchasing an additional 98,546 shares in the last quarter. JPMorgan Chase & Co. lifted its stake in AMETEK by 3.7% in the 3rd quarter. JPMorgan Chase & Co. now owns 6,985,350 shares of the technology company’s stock worth $1,199,454,000 after purchasing an additional 250,538 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Capital World Investors lifted its stake in AMETEK by 70.0% in the 4th quarter. Capital World Investors now owns 5,760,017 shares of the technology company’s stock worth $1,038,301,000 after purchasing an additional 2,371,062 shares in the last quarter. Institutional investors own 87.43% of the company’s stock.

AMETEK Company Profile

AMETEK, Inc manufactures and sells electronic instruments and electromechanical devices in the North America, Europe, Asia, and South America, and internationally. The company's EIG segment offers advanced instruments for the process, aerospace, power, and industrial markets; process and analytical instruments for the oil and gas, petrochemical, pharmaceutical, semiconductor, automation, and food and beverage industries; instruments to the laboratory equipment, ultra-precision manufacturing, medical, and test and measurement markets; power quality monitoring and c devices, uninterruptible power supplies, programmable power and electromagnetic compatibility test equipment, and sensors for gas turbines and dashboard instruments; heavy trucks, instrumentation, and controls for the food and beverage industries; and aircraft and engine sensors, power supplies, embedded computing, monitoring, fuel and fluid measurement, and data acquisition systems for aerospace and defense industry.