Montag A & Associates Inc. Has $1.76 Million Stake in IDEX Co. (NYSE:IEX)

Montag A & Associates Inc. increased its stake in shares of IDEX Co. (NYSE:IEX) by 1.9% during the fourth quarter, according to the company in its most recent disclosure with the Securities & Exchange Commission. The firm owned 8,120 shares of the industrial products company’s stock after acquiring an additional 148 shares during the period. Montag A & Associates Inc.’s holdings in IDEX were worth $1,763,000 as of its most recent SEC filing.

A number of other hedge funds and other institutional investors have also made changes to their positions in the stock. Commonwealth Equity Services LLC grew its position in IDEX by 1.3% in the third quarter. Commonwealth Equity Services LLC now owns 4,289 shares of the industrial products company’s stock valued at $892,000 after purchasing an additional 53 shares in the last quarter. Raymond James & Associates grew its position in shares of IDEX by 13.3% in the 3rd quarter. Raymond James & Associates now owns 68,781 shares of the industrial products company’s stock valued at $14,308,000 after acquiring an additional 8,083 shares during the period. Mackenzie Financial Corp grew its position in shares of IDEX by 4.5% in the 3rd quarter. Mackenzie Financial Corp now owns 6,667 shares of the industrial products company’s stock valued at $1,380,000 after acquiring an additional 290 shares during the period. IFM Investors Pty Ltd grew its position in shares of IDEX by 3.8% in the 3rd quarter. IFM Investors Pty Ltd now owns 20,051 shares of the industrial products company’s stock valued at $4,171,000 after acquiring an additional 731 shares during the period. Finally, Advisor Partners II LLC grew its position in shares of IDEX by 2.8% in the 3rd quarter. Advisor Partners II LLC now owns 3,611 shares of the industrial products company’s stock valued at $751,000 after acquiring an additional 97 shares during the period. 97.96% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

IDEX Stock Performance

Shares of NYSE IEX traded up $0.67 during mid-day trading on Thursday, reaching $222.74. 669,046 shares of the company’s stock were exchanged, compared to its average volume of 384,087. The firm has a 50-day moving average price of $234.10 and a two-hundred day moving average price of $217.94. IDEX Co. has a 52 week low of $183.76 and a 52 week high of $246.36. The firm has a market capitalization of $16.86 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 29.31, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 2.21 and a beta of 0.99. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.37, a current ratio of 3.37 and a quick ratio of 2.45.

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, topping the consensus estimate of $1.76 by $0.12. The company had revenue of $801.00 million during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $807.52 million. IDEX had a return on equity of 17.60% and a net margin of 17.89%. The firm’s revenue for the quarter was down 5.3% on a year-over-year basis. During the same quarter last year, the firm posted $2.09 EPS. Analysts predict that IDEX Co. will post 8.33 EPS for the current year.

IDEX Increases Dividend

The firm also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Friday, May 31st. Stockholders of record on Friday, May 17th will be issued a dividend of $0.69 per share. This is a positive change from IDEX’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.64. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Thursday, May 16th. This represents a $2.76 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 1.24%. IDEX’s payout ratio is presently 33.68%.

Wall Street Analyst Weigh In

IEX has been the subject of a number of research reports. Robert W. Baird dropped their target price on shares of IDEX from $260.00 to $256.00 and set an “outperform” rating for the company in a report on Thursday, April 25th. Oppenheimer raised their price objective on shares of IDEX from $245.00 to $252.00 and gave the stock an “outperform” rating in a research report on Thursday, April 18th. Stifel Nicolaus raised shares of IDEX from a “hold” rating to a “buy” rating and raised their price objective for the stock from $215.00 to $265.00 in a research report on Thursday, February 8th. StockNews.com downgraded shares of IDEX from a “buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a research report on Thursday, May 2nd. Finally, Citigroup raised their price objective on shares of IDEX from $254.00 to $277.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a research report on Monday, April 8th. Two research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and six have assigned a buy rating to the company’s stock. Based on data from MarketBeat, the stock currently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus target price of $250.71.

IDEX 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.