Essex Investment Management Co. LLC Purchases 23,819 Shares of IDEX Co. (NYSE:IEX)

Essex Investment Management Co. LLC grew its position in shares of IDEX Co. (NYSE:IEX) by 28,356.0% during the 4th quarter, Holdings Channel.com reports. The firm owned 23,903 shares of the industrial products company’s stock after acquiring an additional 23,819 shares during the period. IDEX accounts for approximately 0.9% of Essex Investment Management Co. LLC’s holdings, making the stock its 29th largest holding. Essex Investment Management Co. LLC’s holdings in IDEX were worth $5,003,000 at the end of the most recent reporting period.

Other institutional investors have also recently modified their holdings of the company. Asset Management One Co. Ltd. increased its position in shares of IDEX by 4.2% during the 4th quarter. Asset Management One Co. Ltd. now owns 30,250 shares of the industrial products company’s stock valued at $6,386,000 after purchasing an additional 1,209 shares during the last quarter. Cerity Partners LLC boosted its holdings in IDEX by 48.3% during the 3rd quarter. Cerity Partners LLC now owns 20,632 shares of the industrial products company’s stock valued at $4,426,000 after acquiring an additional 6,720 shares during the period. Sumitomo Mitsui Trust Group Inc. boosted its holdings in IDEX by 2.7% during the 3rd quarter. Sumitomo Mitsui Trust Group Inc. now owns 168,023 shares of the industrial products company’s stock valued at $36,041,000 after acquiring an additional 4,465 shares during the period. BNP PARIBAS ASSET MANAGEMENT Holding S.A. boosted its holdings in IDEX by 7.1% during the 3rd quarter. BNP PARIBAS ASSET MANAGEMENT Holding S.A. now owns 250,443 shares of the industrial products company’s stock valued at $53,720,000 after acquiring an additional 16,504 shares during the period. Finally, Covea Finance boosted its holdings in IDEX by 70.6% during the 4th quarter. Covea Finance now owns 14,500 shares of the industrial products company’s stock valued at $3,035,000 after acquiring an additional 6,000 shares during the period. 97.96% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

Several brokerages recently weighed in on IEX. DA Davidson dropped their target price on IDEX from $225.00 to $215.00 and set a “neutral” rating for the company in a report on Wednesday, February 19th. Citigroup dropped their target price on IDEX from $269.00 to $267.00 and set a “buy” rating for the company in a report on Monday, January 13th. Stifel Nicolaus increased their target price on IDEX from $244.00 to $256.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a report on Wednesday, December 11th. Finally, Royal Bank of Canada dropped their price objective on IDEX from $256.00 to $245.00 and set an “outperform” rating for the company in a report on Thursday, February 6th. Three investment analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and six have assigned a buy rating to the company’s stock. According to MarketBeat.com, the stock currently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $241.71.

IDEX Trading Down 0.1 %

NYSE IEX opened at $187.36 on Friday. IDEX Co. has a fifty-two week low of $183.24 and a fifty-two week high of $246.36. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.49, a quick ratio of 1.85 and a current ratio of 2.53. The stock has a 50 day simple moving average of $205.18 and a two-hundred day simple moving average of $211.29. The stock has a market cap of $14.20 billion, a P/E ratio of 28.17, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 1.98 and a beta of 0.99.

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

IDEX 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.