Hudson Valley Investment Advisors Inc. ADV Purchases 897 Shares of Danaher Co. (NYSE:DHR)

Hudson Valley Investment Advisors Inc. ADV increased its holdings in shares of Danaher Co. (NYSE:DHR) by 1.9% during the fourth quarter, according to the company in its most recent 13F filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). The fund owned 47,003 shares of the conglomerate’s stock after acquiring an additional 897 shares during the period. Danaher comprises approximately 1.2% of Hudson Valley Investment Advisors Inc. ADV’s holdings, making the stock its 23rd largest holding. Hudson Valley Investment Advisors Inc. ADV’s holdings in Danaher were worth $10,790,000 at the end of the most recent quarter.

A number of other hedge funds and other institutional investors have also recently bought and sold shares of DHR. FMR LLC increased its stake in shares of Danaher by 15.8% in the 3rd quarter. FMR LLC now owns 23,617,424 shares of the conglomerate’s stock valued at $6,566,116,000 after buying an additional 3,217,631 shares during the period. Massachusetts Financial Services Co. MA boosted its holdings in Danaher by 22.7% in the second quarter. Massachusetts Financial Services Co. MA now owns 3,047,728 shares of the conglomerate’s stock valued at $761,475,000 after acquiring an additional 563,546 shares during the last quarter. International Assets Investment Management LLC boosted its holdings in Danaher by 40,196.5% in the third quarter. International Assets Investment Management LLC now owns 429,964 shares of the conglomerate’s stock valued at $119,539,000 after acquiring an additional 428,897 shares during the last quarter. Montrusco Bolton Investments Inc. increased its position in Danaher by 30.4% in the third quarter. Montrusco Bolton Investments Inc. now owns 1,705,884 shares of the conglomerate’s stock worth $465,617,000 after purchasing an additional 397,671 shares during the period. Finally, Caisse DE Depot ET Placement DU Quebec raised its holdings in Danaher by 82.4% during the 3rd quarter. Caisse DE Depot ET Placement DU Quebec now owns 653,375 shares of the conglomerate’s stock worth $181,651,000 after purchasing an additional 295,187 shares during the last quarter. 79.05% of the stock is owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

Analyst Ratings Changes

Several equities research analysts have recently commented on DHR shares. Robert W. Baird lowered their price target on shares of Danaher from $278.00 to $277.00 and set an “outperform” rating for the company in a research report on Wednesday, October 23rd. KeyCorp increased their price target on Danaher from $290.00 to $310.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a research note on Wednesday, October 23rd. Barclays decreased their price objective on Danaher from $285.00 to $275.00 and set an “equal weight” rating for the company in a research note on Wednesday, October 23rd. Bank of America raised Danaher from a “neutral” rating to a “buy” rating and set a $290.00 target price on the stock in a research note on Friday, December 13th. Finally, Stifel Nicolaus boosted their target price on Danaher from $250.00 to $265.00 and gave the stock a “hold” rating in a research report on Wednesday, October 23rd. Six analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and fifteen have assigned a buy rating to the company’s stock. According to MarketBeat.com, the stock presently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus price target of $286.80.

Danaher Stock Performance

Shares of DHR stock opened at $237.90 on Friday. The company’s fifty day simple moving average is $235.93 and its 200-day simple moving average is $253.88. Danaher Co. has a 12 month low of $222.53 and a 12 month high of $281.70. The company has a quick ratio of 1.01, a current ratio of 1.37 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.32. The firm has a market cap of $171.83 billion, a PE ratio of 45.40, a P/E/G ratio of 4.33 and a beta of 0.83.

Danaher (NYSE:DHR) last released its quarterly earnings data on Tuesday, October 22nd. The conglomerate reported $1.71 EPS for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $1.57 by $0.14. The company had revenue of $5.80 billion during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $5.59 billion. Danaher had a return on equity of 10.62% and a net margin of 16.39%. The firm’s revenue for the quarter was up 3.1% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same quarter in the prior year, the firm posted $2.02 EPS. Equities research analysts expect that Danaher Co. will post 7.5 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Danaher Announces Dividend

The firm also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Friday, January 31st. Investors of record on Friday, December 27th will be issued a dividend of $0.27 per share. This represents a $1.08 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 0.45%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Friday, December 27th. Danaher’s payout ratio is presently 20.61%.

Danaher Profile

Danaher Corporation designs, manufactures, and markets professional, medical, industrial, and commercial products and services worldwide. The Biotechnology segments offers bioprocess technologies, consumables, and services that advance, accelerate, and integrate the development and manufacture of therapeutics; cell line and cell culture media development services; cell culture media, process liquids and buffers for manufacturing, chromatography resins, filtration technologies, aseptic fill finish; single-use hardware and consumables and services, such as the design and installation of full manufacturing suites; lab filtration, separation, and purification; lab-scale protein purification and analytical tools; reagents, membranes, and services; and healthcare filtration solutions.