BankPlus Trust Department Purchases New Position in IDEX Co. (NYSE:IEX)

BankPlus Trust Department bought a new stake in IDEX Co. (NYSE:IEX) in the fourth quarter, Holdings Channel reports. The institutional investor bought 586 shares of the industrial products company’s stock, valued at approximately $123,000.

Other institutional investors and hedge funds have also made changes to their positions in the company. Catalyst Capital Advisors LLC raised its holdings in shares of IDEX by 73.8% in the third quarter. Catalyst Capital Advisors LLC now owns 139 shares of the industrial products company’s stock valued at $30,000 after buying an additional 59 shares during the last quarter. Assetmark Inc. purchased a new stake in shares of IDEX in the third quarter valued at about $39,000. Brooklyn Investment Group purchased a new stake in shares of IDEX in the third quarter valued at about $86,000. Fred Alger Management LLC purchased a new stake in shares of IDEX in the third quarter valued at about $89,000. Finally, Blue Trust Inc. raised its holdings in shares of IDEX by 41.9% in the third quarter. Blue Trust Inc. now owns 481 shares of the industrial products company’s stock valued at $97,000 after buying an additional 142 shares during the last quarter. 97.96% of the stock is owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

Several research analysts recently issued reports on the stock. Stifel Nicolaus increased their price target on shares of IDEX from $244.00 to $256.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a report on Wednesday, December 11th. Royal Bank of Canada cut their price target on shares of IDEX from $256.00 to $245.00 and set an “outperform” rating for the company in a report on Thursday, February 6th. Citigroup cut their price target on shares of IDEX from $269.00 to $267.00 and set a “buy” rating for the company in a report on Monday, January 13th. Robert W. Baird cut their price target on shares of IDEX from $245.00 to $241.00 and set an “outperform” rating for the company in a report on Thursday, October 31st. Finally, DA Davidson lowered their target price on shares of IDEX from $225.00 to $215.00 and set a “neutral” rating on the stock in a research report on Wednesday, February 19th. Three analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and six have given a buy rating to the company. According to MarketBeat, the stock has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus target price of $241.71.

IDEX Trading Up 1.9 %

Shares of IEX opened at $196.61 on Tuesday. The company has a current ratio of 2.53, a quick ratio of 1.85 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.49. The firm’s 50-day moving average is $209.15 and its two-hundred day moving average is $211.69. IDEX Co. has a twelve month low of $189.51 and a twelve month high of $246.36. The firm has a market capitalization of $14.90 billion, a P/E ratio of 29.57, a PEG ratio of 1.98 and a beta of 0.97.

IDEX (NYSE:IEX) last released its quarterly earnings results on Tuesday, February 4th. The industrial products company reported $2.04 EPS for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $2.03 by $0.01. IDEX had a net margin of 15.45% and a return on equity of 16.08%. On average, research analysts predict that IDEX Co. will post 8.26 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

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.