Avestar Capital LLC Raises Stock Holdings in Danaher Co. (NYSE:DHR)

Avestar Capital LLC boosted its holdings in shares of Danaher Co. (NYSE:DHR) by 6.5% in the third quarter, according to the company in its most recent 13F filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission. The firm owned 3,810 shares of the conglomerate’s stock after acquiring an additional 231 shares during the quarter. Avestar Capital LLC’s holdings in Danaher were worth $1,059,000 as of its most recent SEC filing.

Several other hedge funds also recently bought and sold shares of the business. Brooklyn Investment Group boosted its stake in shares of Danaher by 5.3% during the third quarter. Brooklyn Investment Group now owns 4,911 shares of the conglomerate’s stock valued at $1,365,000 after purchasing an additional 249 shares during the period. D.A. Davidson & CO. boosted its position in Danaher by 2.6% in the 3rd quarter. D.A. Davidson & CO. now owns 13,294 shares of the conglomerate’s stock valued at $3,696,000 after buying an additional 343 shares during the period. FMR LLC boosted its position in Danaher by 15.8% in the 3rd quarter. FMR LLC now owns 23,617,424 shares of the conglomerate’s stock valued at $6,566,116,000 after buying an additional 3,217,631 shares during the period. Dai ichi Life Insurance Company Ltd grew its stake in Danaher by 4.0% in the 3rd quarter. Dai ichi Life Insurance Company Ltd now owns 51,913 shares of the conglomerate’s stock worth $14,433,000 after acquiring an additional 2,000 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Qsemble Capital Management LP purchased a new position in shares of Danaher during the third quarter worth approximately $555,000. Institutional investors own 79.05% of the company’s stock.

Wall Street Analyst Weigh In

DHR has been the subject of several research reports. UBS Group lowered their target price on Danaher from $309.00 to $305.00 and set a “buy” rating for the company in a report on Wednesday, October 23rd. Evercore ISI increased their target price on shares of Danaher from $275.00 to $278.00 and gave the stock an “outperform” rating in a report on Tuesday, October 1st. Wolfe Research upgraded shares of Danaher from a “peer perform” rating to an “outperform” rating and set a $285.00 price target for the company in a report on Thursday, October 31st. Stephens reaffirmed an “overweight” rating and issued a $315.00 price target on shares of Danaher in a research report on Wednesday, October 23rd. Finally, StockNews.com lowered shares of Danaher from a “buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a report on Monday, November 18th. Six investment analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and fourteen have assigned a buy rating to the stock. According to MarketBeat.com, the company presently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus price target of $287.16.

Danaher Stock Down 0.5 %

DHR stock opened at $236.53 on Wednesday. The firm has a 50 day moving average of $256.66 and a 200 day moving average of $259.81. Danaher Co. has a 52 week low of $215.68 and a 52 week high of $281.70. The stock has a market capitalization of $170.84 billion, a PE ratio of 45.14, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 4.37 and a beta of 0.85. The company has a quick ratio of 1.01, a current ratio of 1.37 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.32.

Danaher (NYSE:DHR) last announced its earnings results on Tuesday, October 22nd. The conglomerate reported $1.71 earnings per share for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $1.57 by $0.14. The business had revenue of $5.80 billion during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $5.59 billion. Danaher had a return on equity of 10.62% and a net margin of 16.39%. The business’s quarterly revenue was up 3.1% on a year-over-year basis. During the same period in the prior year, the company posted $2.02 EPS. Sell-side analysts forecast that Danaher Co. will post 7.5 earnings per share for the current year.

Danaher Announces Dividend

The company also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Friday, October 25th. Investors of record on Friday, September 27th were given a dividend of $0.27 per share. This represents a $1.08 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 0.46%. The ex-dividend date was Friday, September 27th. Danaher’s payout ratio is 20.61%.

Danaher 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.