Principal Financial Group Inc. Sells 4,541 Shares of IDEX Co. (NYSE:IEX)

Principal Financial Group Inc. lessened its position in IDEX Co. (NYSE:IEX) by 4.7% during the 2nd quarter, according to the company in its most recent Form 13F filing with the SEC. The institutional investor owned 93,016 shares of the industrial products company’s stock after selling 4,541 shares during the period. Principal Financial Group Inc. owned about 0.12% of IDEX worth $18,715,000 as of its most recent SEC filing.

Other institutional investors have also recently made changes to their positions in the company. International Assets Investment Management LLC purchased a new stake in IDEX during the 4th quarter valued at $518,000. Van ECK Associates Corp increased its holdings in IDEX by 6.4% in the 4th quarter. Van ECK Associates Corp now owns 10,457 shares of the industrial products company’s stock worth $2,270,000 after buying an additional 627 shares in the last quarter. National Bank of Canada FI increased its holdings in IDEX by 7.3% in the 4th quarter. National Bank of Canada FI now owns 20,187 shares of the industrial products company’s stock worth $4,341,000 after buying an additional 1,382 shares in the last quarter. Metis Global Partners LLC raised its position in IDEX by 3.0% in the 4th quarter. Metis Global Partners LLC now owns 6,166 shares of the industrial products company’s stock worth $1,339,000 after buying an additional 178 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Private Advisor Group LLC lifted its stake in IDEX by 6.4% during the 4th quarter. Private Advisor Group LLC now owns 2,418 shares of the industrial products company’s stock valued at $525,000 after acquiring an additional 146 shares during the period. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 97.96% of the company’s stock.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

IEX has been the subject of several research reports. Stifel Nicolaus decreased their price objective on shares of IDEX from $265.00 to $236.00 and set a “buy” rating for the company in a report on Thursday, July 18th. StockNews.com lowered shares of IDEX from a “buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a research note on Thursday, July 11th. DA Davidson dropped their price target on IDEX from $220.00 to $210.00 and set a “neutral” rating on the stock in a research note on Monday, August 5th. TD Cowen reduced their price objective on IDEX from $240.00 to $230.00 and set a “buy” rating for the company in a research report on Wednesday, August 7th. Finally, Argus downgraded IDEX from a “buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a report on Wednesday, August 14th. Four equities research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and six have assigned a buy rating to the company’s stock. According to MarketBeat, the stock has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus price target of $233.50.

IDEX Stock Performance

Shares of IEX opened at $202.89 on Wednesday. The business has a 50-day simple moving average of $200.25 and a two-hundred day simple moving average of $216.60. The company has a quick ratio of 2.52, a current ratio of 3.41 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.36. IDEX Co. has a 52 week low of $183.76 and a 52 week high of $246.36. The stock has a market cap of $15.36 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 26.70, a PEG ratio of 2.18 and a beta of 0.95.

IDEX (NYSE:IEX) last released its earnings results on Wednesday, July 31st. The industrial products company reported $2.06 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $2.04 by $0.02. IDEX had a net margin of 18.19% and a return on equity of 16.87%. The company had revenue of $807.20 million during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $828.15 million. During the same period in the prior year, the firm posted $2.18 EPS. The firm’s quarterly revenue was down 4.6% compared to the same quarter last year. On average, analysts expect that IDEX Co. will post 7.88 EPS for the current year.

IDEX Dividend Announcement

The firm also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Friday, July 26th. Shareholders of record on Friday, July 12th were paid a $0.69 dividend. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Friday, July 12th. This represents a $2.76 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 1.36%. IDEX’s payout ratio is presently 36.32%.

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.