Desjardins Global Asset Management Inc. Increases Holdings in IDEX Co. (NYSE:IEX)

Desjardins Global Asset Management Inc. lifted its position in IDEX Co. (NYSE:IEX) by 25.6% in the fourth quarter, according to its most recent Form 13F filing with the SEC. The firm owned 388 shares of the industrial products company’s stock after purchasing an additional 79 shares during the period. Desjardins Global Asset Management Inc.’s holdings in IDEX were worth $84,000 at the end of the most recent quarter.

A number of other large investors have also recently modified their holdings of IEX. American Century Companies Inc. raised its stake in IDEX by 34.2% in the first quarter. American Century Companies Inc. now owns 3,251 shares of the industrial products company’s stock worth $623,000 after buying an additional 829 shares in the last quarter. Healthcare of Ontario Pension Plan Trust Fund bought a new position in IDEX in the first quarter worth approximately $1,058,000. Commonwealth of Pennsylvania Public School Empls Retrmt SYS raised its stake in IDEX by 6.6% in the first quarter. Commonwealth of Pennsylvania Public School Empls Retrmt SYS now owns 10,173 shares of the industrial products company’s stock worth $1,950,000 after buying an additional 630 shares in the last quarter. Yousif Capital Management LLC raised its stake in IDEX by 3.5% in the first quarter. Yousif Capital Management LLC now owns 16,223 shares of the industrial products company’s stock worth $3,110,000 after buying an additional 555 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Sei Investments Co. raised its stake in IDEX by 24.2% in the first quarter. Sei Investments Co. now owns 82,824 shares of the industrial products company’s stock worth $15,877,000 after buying an additional 16,117 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 subject of a number of recent research reports. Citigroup boosted their price objective on shares of IDEX from $254.00 to $277.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a research note on Monday, April 8th. Royal Bank of Canada reissued an “outperform” rating and issued a $255.00 price objective on shares of IDEX in a research note on Thursday, March 21st. Stifel Nicolaus raised IDEX from a “hold” rating to a “buy” rating and upped their price target for the stock from $215.00 to $265.00 in a research report on Thursday, February 8th. StockNews.com raised IDEX from a “hold” rating to a “buy” rating in a research report on Tuesday. Finally, Oppenheimer raised their price objective on IDEX from $245.00 to $252.00 and gave the stock an “outperform” rating in a research report on Thursday. One investment analyst has rated the stock with a hold rating and six have issued a buy rating to the company’s stock. According to data from MarketBeat.com, the company has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average price target of $238.78.

IDEX Price Performance

Shares of NYSE IEX opened at $227.04 on Friday. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.37, a quick ratio of 2.05 and a current ratio of 2.89. The company has a market cap of $17.18 billion, a PE ratio of 28.96, a P/E/G ratio of 2.26 and a beta of 0.97. The business has a 50-day simple moving average of $236.41 and a two-hundred day simple moving average of $216.02. IDEX Co. has a fifty-two week low of $183.76 and a fifty-two week high of $246.36.

IDEX (NYSE:IEX) last issued its quarterly earnings results on Tuesday, February 6th. The industrial products company reported $1.83 earnings per share for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $1.78 by $0.05. IDEX had a return on equity of 18.56% and a net margin of 18.21%. The business had revenue of $788.90 million during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $767.96 million. During the same quarter last year, the company earned $2.01 earnings per share. The company’s quarterly revenue was down 2.7% on a year-over-year basis. As a group, equities analysts expect that IDEX Co. will post 8.34 EPS for the current fiscal year.

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.