IDEX Co. (NYSE:IEX) Raises Dividend to $0.69 Per Share

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

IDEX has raised its dividend payment by an average of 8.0% annually over the last three years and has increased its dividend every year for the last 14 years. IDEX has a dividend payout ratio of 28.1% indicating that its dividend is sufficiently covered by earnings. Analysts expect IDEX to earn $9.20 per share next year, which means the company should continue to be able to cover its $2.56 annual dividend with an expected future payout ratio of 27.8%.

IDEX Price Performance

IEX traded up $0.77 during trading on Wednesday, reaching $222.52. The stock had a trading volume of 8,423 shares, compared to its average volume of 377,018. IDEX has a 1-year low of $183.76 and a 1-year high of $246.36. The company has a quick ratio of 2.45, a current ratio of 3.37 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.37. The stock has a 50 day moving average of $234.66 and a two-hundred day moving average of $217.88. The firm has a market capitalization of $16.84 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 29.17, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 2.21 and a beta of 0.99.

IDEX (NYSE:IEX) last announced its earnings results on Tuesday, April 23rd. The industrial products company reported $1.88 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $1.76 by $0.12. The company had revenue of $801.00 million for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $807.52 million. IDEX had a net margin of 17.89% and a return on equity of 17.60%. The company’s revenue was down 5.3% on a year-over-year basis. During the same period in the previous year, the business earned $2.09 EPS. As a group, equities analysts anticipate that IDEX will post 8.33 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

Several equities analysts have recently commented on IEX shares. Citigroup upped their price target on shares of IDEX from $254.00 to $277.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a research note on Monday, April 8th. 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. Oppenheimer increased their target price 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. Robert W. Baird lowered their price objective on IDEX from $260.00 to $256.00 and set an “outperform” rating on the stock in a report on Thursday, April 25th. Finally, StockNews.com lowered shares of IDEX from a “buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a research note on Thursday, May 2nd. Two research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and six have given a buy rating to the stock. According to MarketBeat.com, the stock presently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average price target of $250.71.

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.