Rice Hall James & Associates LLC Sells 81 Shares of IDEX Co. (NYSE:IEX)

Rice Hall James & Associates LLC reduced its position in IDEX Co. (NYSE:IEX) by 2.4% during the third quarter, according to its most recent 13F filing with the SEC. The institutional investor owned 3,362 shares of the industrial products company’s stock after selling 81 shares during the period. Rice Hall James & Associates LLC’s holdings in IDEX were worth $721,000 at the end of the most recent quarter.

Several other hedge funds and other institutional investors have also recently modified their holdings of the stock. UMB Bank n.a. raised its position in shares of IDEX by 31.0% in the 2nd quarter. UMB Bank n.a. now owns 241 shares of the industrial products company’s stock valued at $48,000 after purchasing an additional 57 shares during the last quarter. EverSource Wealth Advisors LLC raised its position in shares of IDEX by 19.9% in the 2nd quarter. EverSource Wealth Advisors LLC now owns 344 shares of the industrial products company’s stock valued at $72,000 after purchasing an additional 57 shares during the last quarter. Whittier Trust Co. raised its position in shares of IDEX by 38.4% in the 2nd quarter. Whittier Trust Co. now owns 209 shares of the industrial products company’s stock valued at $42,000 after purchasing an additional 58 shares during the last quarter. Oregon Public Employees Retirement Fund raised its position in shares of IDEX by 1.0% in the 2nd quarter. Oregon Public Employees Retirement Fund now owns 6,476 shares of the industrial products company’s stock valued at $1,303,000 after purchasing an additional 61 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Checchi Capital Advisers LLC raised its position in shares of IDEX by 5.1% in the 2nd quarter. Checchi Capital Advisers LLC now owns 1,385 shares of the industrial products company’s stock valued at $279,000 after purchasing an additional 67 shares during the last quarter. 97.96% of the stock is owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

Wall Street Analyst Weigh In

A number of research firms have issued reports on IEX. Argus lowered shares of IDEX from a “buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a research report on Wednesday, August 14th. Stifel Nicolaus raised their price target on shares of IDEX from $232.00 to $244.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a research report on Wednesday, October 16th. Royal Bank of Canada raised their price target on shares of IDEX from $236.00 to $248.00 and gave the stock an “outperform” rating in a research report on Thursday. StockNews.com lowered shares of IDEX from a “buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a research report on Thursday, July 11th. Finally, Oppenheimer cut their target price on shares of IDEX from $245.00 to $238.00 and set an “outperform” rating for the company in a report on Monday, August 5th. Three analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and six have assigned a buy rating to the company. Based on data from MarketBeat, the stock currently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average price target of $241.14.

IDEX Price Performance

NYSE:IEX opened at $216.05 on Friday. The company has a 50 day moving average price of $207.06 and a 200-day moving average price of $207.65. IDEX Co. has a 1-year low of $189.33 and a 1-year high of $246.36. The firm has a market cap of $16.35 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 33.44, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 2.32 and a beta of 0.95. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.54, a current ratio of 2.97 and a quick ratio of 2.52.

IDEX (NYSE:IEX) last released its quarterly earnings results on Tuesday, October 29th. The industrial products company reported $1.90 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $1.89 by $0.01. IDEX had a net margin of 15.35% and a return on equity of 15.92%. The firm had revenue of $798.20 million for the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $793.05 million. During the same quarter last year, the company earned $2.12 EPS. The firm’s revenue for the quarter was up .6% compared to the same quarter last year. Equities research analysts forecast that IDEX Co. will post 7.86 EPS for the current year.

IDEX Announces Dividend

The business also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Friday, October 25th. Investors of record on Friday, October 11th were paid a $0.69 dividend. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Friday, October 11th. This represents a $2.76 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 1.28%. IDEX’s dividend payout ratio is currently 42.72%.

IDEX Company 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.