IDEX Co. (NYSE:IEX) Sees Large Increase in Short Interest

by · The Cerbat Gem

IDEX Co. (NYSE:IEX – Get Free Report) was the target of a significant growth in short interest in September. As of September 30th, there was short interest totalling 1,320,000 shares, a growth of 69.5% from the September 15th total of 778,600 shares. Based on an average daily trading volume, of 562,100 shares, the days-to-cover ratio is presently 2.3 days. Currently, 1.8% of the company’s stock are sold short.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

IEX has been the topic of a number of recent research reports. Royal Bank of Canada reduced their price objective on IDEX from $250.00 to $236.00 and set an “outperform” rating on the stock in a research note on Friday, August 2nd. Stifel Nicolaus dropped their price target on shares of IDEX from $265.00 to $236.00 and set a “buy” rating for the company in a research report on Thursday, July 18th. TD Cowen reduced their price objective on IDEX from $240.00 to $230.00 and set a “buy” rating on the stock in a research note on Wednesday, August 7th. Oppenheimer cut their price target on shares of IDEX from $245.00 to $238.00 and set an “outperform” rating on the stock in a report on Monday, August 5th. Finally, Robert W. Baird cut their target price on shares of IDEX from $256.00 to $241.00 and set an “outperform” rating on the stock in a research report on Friday, August 2nd. Three analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and six have assigned a buy rating to the company’s stock. According to data from MarketBeat.com, IDEX currently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average price target of $238.29.

View Our Latest Stock Analysis on IEX

Institutional Trading of IDEX

Institutional investors and hedge funds have recently made changes to their positions in the company. Price T Rowe Associates Inc. MD raised its position in IDEX by 7.5% during the 1st quarter. Price T Rowe Associates Inc. MD now owns 7,964,956 shares of the industrial products company’s stock valued at $1,943,609,000 after purchasing an additional 555,250 shares during the last quarter. Hsbc Holdings PLC grew its stake in shares of IDEX by 75.6% during the 2nd quarter. Hsbc Holdings PLC now owns 519,124 shares of the industrial products company’s stock valued at $104,179,000 after acquiring an additional 223,422 shares during the period. Goldman Sachs Group Inc. increased its stake in IDEX by 19.9% in the 4th quarter. Goldman Sachs Group Inc. now owns 492,810 shares of the industrial products company’s stock worth $106,994,000 after buying an additional 81,780 shares in the last quarter. Dimensional Fund Advisors LP grew its position in shares of IDEX by 20.0% during the second quarter. Dimensional Fund Advisors LP now owns 470,672 shares of the industrial products company’s stock valued at $94,698,000 after purchasing an additional 78,551 shares in the last quarter. Finally, CCLA Investment Management increased its position in IDEX by 1.8% in the second quarter. CCLA Investment Management now owns 433,403 shares of the industrial products company’s stock worth $86,697,000 after purchasing an additional 7,615 shares during the last quarter. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 97.96% of the company’s stock.

IDEX Stock Performance

Shares of IEX traded up $3.72 during mid-day trading on Friday, hitting $211.49. The company’s stock had a trading volume of 342,021 shares, compared to its average volume of 466,304. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.36, a quick ratio of 2.52 and a current ratio of 3.41. The stock’s 50-day moving average is $202.97 and its two-hundred day moving average is $210.52. IDEX has a one year low of $183.76 and a one year high of $246.36. The firm has a market capitalization of $16.01 billion, a PE ratio of 27.68, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 2.20 and a beta of 0.95.

IDEX (NYSE:IEX – Get Free Report) last issued its quarterly earnings results on Wednesday, July 31st. The industrial products company reported $2.06 EPS for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $2.04 by $0.02. The company had revenue of $807.20 million for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $828.15 million. IDEX had a return on equity of 16.87% and a net margin of 18.19%. The company’s quarterly revenue was down 4.6% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same period in the previous year, the company posted $2.18 earnings per share. As a group, sell-side analysts anticipate that IDEX will post 7.88 EPS for the current year.

IDEX Announces Dividend

The business also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Friday, October 25th. Shareholders of record on Friday, October 11th will be issued a $0.69 dividend. This represents a $2.76 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 1.31%. The ex-dividend date is Friday, October 11th. IDEX’s payout ratio is 36.13%.

About IDEX

(Get Free Report)

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.

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