IDEX (NYSE:IEX) Upgraded by StockNews.com to “Buy”

StockNews.com upgraded shares of IDEX (NYSE:IEX) from a hold rating to a buy rating in a report published on Tuesday.

Several other brokerages have also weighed in on IEX. Stifel Nicolaus raised IDEX from a hold rating to a buy rating and upped their target price for the stock from $215.00 to $265.00 in a research report on Thursday, February 8th. Citigroup lifted their target price on shares of IDEX from $254.00 to $277.00 and gave the company a buy rating in a research note on Monday, April 8th. Finally, Royal Bank of Canada restated an outperform rating and set a $255.00 price target on shares of IDEX in a research note on Thursday, March 21st. One analyst has rated the stock with a hold rating and six have assigned a buy rating to the company’s stock. Based on data from MarketBeat, IDEX has an average rating of Moderate Buy and a consensus target price of $238.00.

IDEX Trading Down 0.6 %

NYSE:IEX opened at $229.12 on Tuesday. The stock’s 50-day moving average is $236.34 and its two-hundred day moving average is $215.73. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.37, a current ratio of 2.89 and a quick ratio of 2.05. The stock has a market cap of $17.34 billion, a PE ratio of 29.22, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 2.32 and a beta of 0.97. IDEX has a fifty-two week low of $183.76 and a fifty-two week high of $246.36.

IDEX (NYSE:IEX) last announced its quarterly earnings data on Tuesday, February 6th. The industrial products company reported $1.83 EPS for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $1.78 by $0.05. IDEX had a net margin of 18.21% and a return on equity of 18.56%. The firm had revenue of $788.90 million for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $767.96 million. During the same period in the previous year, the firm posted $2.01 earnings per share. The firm’s revenue was down 2.7% on a year-over-year basis. As a group, equities research analysts forecast that IDEX will post 8.35 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Institutional Inflows and Outflows

Hedge funds and other institutional investors have recently bought and sold shares of the company. Riverview Trust Co bought a new stake in IDEX during the first quarter valued at about $35,000. Lloyd Advisory Services LLC. lifted its position in shares of IDEX by 525.4% during the 1st quarter. Lloyd Advisory Services LLC. now owns 8,800 shares of the industrial products company’s stock worth $2,147,000 after purchasing an additional 7,393 shares during the last quarter. Ballentine Partners LLC bought a new stake in IDEX during the 1st quarter valued at approximately $201,000. Cadent Capital Advisors LLC acquired a new stake in IDEX in the 1st quarter valued at approximately $212,000. Finally, Park Avenue Securities LLC lifted its holdings in shares of IDEX by 13.8% during the first quarter. Park Avenue Securities LLC now owns 2,293 shares of the industrial products company’s stock worth $559,000 after buying an additional 278 shares during the last quarter. 97.96% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

About IDEX

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.