IDEX Co. (NYSE:IEX) Announces Dividend Increase – $0.69 Per Share

IDEX Co. (NYSE:IEX) declared a quarterly dividend on Tuesday, May 7th, RTT News reports. Investors of record on Friday, May 17th will be given a dividend of 0.69 per share by the industrial products company on Friday, May 31st. This represents a $2.76 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 1.24%. The ex-dividend date is Thursday, May 16th. This is an increase from IDEX’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.64.

IDEX has increased its dividend by an average of 8.0% per year over the last three years and has raised its dividend annually for the last 14 consecutive years. IDEX has a payout ratio of 30.3% meaning its dividend is sufficiently covered by earnings. Equities analysts expect IDEX to earn $9.20 per share next year, which means the company should continue to be able to cover its $2.76 annual dividend with an expected future payout ratio of 30.0%.

IDEX Stock Performance

IDEX stock opened at $222.07 on Thursday. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.37, a quick ratio of 2.45 and a current ratio of 3.37. The firm’s fifty day moving average price is $234.36 and its 200-day moving average price is $217.91. IDEX has a fifty-two week low of $183.76 and a fifty-two week high of $246.36. The stock has a market cap of $16.81 billion, a P/E ratio of 29.22, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 2.21 and a beta of 0.99.

IDEX (NYSE:IEX) last announced its quarterly earnings data on Tuesday, April 23rd. The industrial products company reported $1.88 earnings per share for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $1.76 by $0.12. The company had revenue of $801.00 million for the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $807.52 million. IDEX had a return on equity of 17.60% and a net margin of 17.89%. IDEX’s revenue for the quarter was down 5.3% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same period last year, the firm posted $2.09 EPS. On average, equities research analysts expect that IDEX will post 8.33 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

IEX has been the subject of a number of recent analyst reports. StockNews.com lowered shares of IDEX from a “buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a report on Thursday, May 2nd. Royal Bank of Canada reaffirmed an “outperform” rating and set 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 raised their target price for the stock from $215.00 to $265.00 in a research note on Thursday, February 8th. Citigroup boosted their price target on IDEX from $254.00 to $277.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a report on Monday, April 8th. Finally, Oppenheimer increased their price objective on IDEX from $245.00 to $252.00 and gave the stock an “outperform” rating in a report on Thursday, April 18th. Two equities research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and six have issued a buy rating to the stock. Based on data from MarketBeat, the company presently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $250.71.

IDEX Company Profile

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.