Brian W. Ellis Sells 4,000 Shares of Danaher Co. (NYSE:DHR) Stock

Danaher Co. (NYSE:DHR) SVP Brian W. Ellis sold 4,000 shares of the stock in a transaction that occurred on Wednesday, April 24th. The stock was sold at an average price of $250.01, for a total value of $1,000,040.00. Following the sale, the senior vice president now owns 29,830 shares in the company, valued at $7,457,798.30. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which is available at the SEC website.

Danaher Stock Performance

DHR opened at $246.45 on Friday. The firm has a market cap of $182.54 billion, a PE ratio of 41.77, a P/E/G ratio of 4.19 and a beta of 0.83. The company has a quick ratio of 1.37, a current ratio of 1.85 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.31. The business has a fifty day simple moving average of $248.87 and a 200-day simple moving average of $231.08. Danaher Co. has a fifty-two week low of $182.09 and a fifty-two week high of $259.00.

Danaher (NYSE:DHR) last released its quarterly earnings data on Tuesday, April 23rd. The conglomerate reported $1.92 earnings per share for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $1.72 by $0.20. The business had revenue of $5.80 billion during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $5.62 billion. Danaher had a return on equity of 11.43% and a net margin of 16.78%. The company’s revenue was down 2.6% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same period last year, the company posted $2.36 EPS. As a group, equities analysts predict that Danaher Co. will post 7.64 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Danaher Increases Dividend

The firm also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Friday, April 26th. Stockholders of record on Thursday, March 28th were given a $0.27 dividend. This represents a $1.08 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 0.44%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Wednesday, March 27th. This is a boost from Danaher’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.24. Danaher’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is 18.31%.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

A number of analysts have recently weighed in on DHR shares. HSBC upgraded Danaher from a “hold” rating to a “buy” rating and increased their price target for the stock from $250.00 to $280.00 in a research report on Wednesday, April 17th. TD Cowen raised their target price on Danaher from $280.00 to $290.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a research report on Wednesday. Bank of America raised their target price on Danaher from $258.00 to $270.00 and gave the company a “neutral” rating in a research report on Wednesday. Raymond James raised their target price on Danaher from $240.00 to $270.00 and gave the company an “outperform” rating in a research report on Wednesday, January 31st. Finally, Royal Bank of Canada raised their target price on Danaher from $254.00 to $282.00 and gave the company an “outperform” rating in a research report on Wednesday, January 31st. Six equities research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and eleven have given a buy rating to the company. Based on data from MarketBeat, the stock presently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average price target of $270.00.

Institutional Trading of Danaher

Several hedge funds and other institutional investors have recently modified their holdings of DHR. Norges Bank acquired a new stake in shares of Danaher in the fourth quarter worth $1,752,382,000. Wellington Management Group LLP boosted its position in shares of Danaher by 18.6% in the third quarter. Wellington Management Group LLP now owns 24,930,281 shares of the conglomerate’s stock worth $6,185,203,000 after buying an additional 3,905,449 shares during the period. DZ BANK AG Deutsche Zentral Genossenschafts Bank Frankfurt am Main boosted its position in shares of Danaher by 214.4% in the fourth quarter. DZ BANK AG Deutsche Zentral Genossenschafts Bank Frankfurt am Main now owns 3,073,661 shares of the conglomerate’s stock worth $711,051,000 after buying an additional 2,096,038 shares during the period. Price T Rowe Associates Inc. MD boosted its position in shares of Danaher by 10.7% in the fourth quarter. Price T Rowe Associates Inc. MD now owns 16,757,558 shares of the conglomerate’s stock worth $3,876,694,000 after buying an additional 1,619,586 shares during the period. Finally, Capital International Investors boosted its position in shares of Danaher by 9.1% in the fourth quarter. Capital International Investors now owns 15,956,519 shares of the conglomerate’s stock worth $3,691,735,000 after buying an additional 1,334,781 shares during the period. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 79.05% of the company’s stock.

Danaher Company Profile

Danaher Corporation designs, manufactures, and markets professional, medical, industrial, and commercial products and services worldwide. The Biotechnology segments offers bioprocess technologies, consumables, and services that advance, accelerate, and integrate the development and manufacture of therapeutics; cell line and cell culture media development services; cell culture media, process liquids and buffers for manufacturing, chromatography resins, filtration technologies, aseptic fill finish; single-use hardware and consumables and services, such as the design and installation of full manufacturing suites; lab filtration, separation, and purification; lab-scale protein purification and analytical tools; reagents, membranes, and services; and healthcare filtration solutions.