Cognex (NASDAQ:CGNX) Issues Earnings Results, Misses Estimates By $0.01 EPS

Cognex (NASDAQ:CGNX) announced its quarterly earnings data on Wednesday. The scientific and technical instruments company reported $0.14 earnings per share for the quarter, missing analysts’ consensus estimates of $0.15 by ($0.01), Zacks reports. Cognex had a return on equity of 5.28% and a net margin of 10.10%. Cognex updated its Q1 2025 guidance to EPS.

Cognex Price Performance

Shares of NASDAQ:CGNX traded down $1.05 during midday trading on Friday, hitting $32.87. The company had a trading volume of 1,078,177 shares, compared to its average volume of 1,294,893. The company has a market cap of $5.64 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 63.24 and a beta of 1.40. Cognex has a 12-month low of $32.41 and a 12-month high of $53.13. The company has a fifty day moving average of $37.96 and a two-hundred day moving average of $39.22.

Cognex Announces Dividend

The business also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Thursday, March 13th. Stockholders of record on Thursday, February 27th will be paid a $0.08 dividend. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Thursday, February 27th. This represents a $0.32 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 0.97%. Cognex’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is 61.54%.

Insider Transactions at Cognex

In related news, CTO Joerg Kuechen sold 2,934 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction on Thursday, December 12th. The shares were sold at an average price of $37.75, for a total value of $110,758.50. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available at this link. Also, Director Anthony Sun sold 26,000 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction on Friday, November 22nd. The stock was sold at an average price of $40.03, for a total transaction of $1,040,780.00. Following the completion of the transaction, the director now directly owns 26,608 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $1,065,118.24. This represents a 49.42 % decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. 1.10% of the stock is currently owned by company insiders.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

A number of brokerages recently weighed in on CGNX. Stephens restated an “overweight” rating and issued a $55.00 price objective on shares of Cognex in a report on Thursday, January 2nd. Needham & Company LLC decreased their price objective on shares of Cognex from $47.00 to $41.00 and set a “buy” rating for the company in a report on Friday. Truist Financial restated a “hold” rating and issued a $37.00 price objective (down from $43.00) on shares of Cognex in a report on Friday. Cantor Fitzgerald upgraded shares of Cognex to a “strong-buy” rating in a report on Friday, December 20th. Finally, Citigroup decreased their target price on shares of Cognex from $44.00 to $42.00 and set a “neutral” rating for the company in a research note on Monday, January 13th. One equities research analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, five have issued a hold rating, six have given a buy rating and one has issued a strong buy rating to the company. According to MarketBeat.com, the company has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $46.92.

Cognex Company Profile

Cognex Corporation provides machine vision products that capture and analyze visual information to automate manufacturing and distribution tasks worldwide. Its machine vision products are used to automate the manufacturing and tracking of discrete items, including mobile phones, electric vehicle batteries, and e-commerce packages by locating, identifying, inspecting, and measuring them during the manufacturing or distribution process.