IDEX Co. (NYSE:IEX) Short Interest Down 23.1% in February

IDEX Co. (NYSE:IEX) saw a significant drop in short interest in the month of February. As of February 15th, there was short interest totalling 984,800 shares, a drop of 23.1% from the January 31st total of 1,280,000 shares. Currently, 1.3% of the company’s shares are short sold. Based on an average daily trading volume, of 523,800 shares, the days-to-cover ratio is currently 1.9 days.

IDEX Stock Down 0.3 %

Shares of IEX traded down $0.66 during trading hours on Thursday, hitting $187.77. 23,657 shares of the company were exchanged, compared to its average volume of 535,711. The firm’s 50 day moving average is $206.17 and its 200-day moving average is $211.45. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.49, a quick ratio of 1.85 and a current ratio of 2.53. IDEX has a 52 week low of $183.24 and a 52 week high of $246.36. The company has a market cap of $14.23 billion, a PE ratio of 28.16, a PEG ratio of 1.98 and a beta of 0.99.

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 analysts’ consensus estimates of $2.03 by $0.01. IDEX had a net margin of 15.45% and a return on equity of 16.08%. On average, equities research analysts forecast that IDEX will post 8.26 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Institutional Trading of IDEX

Several hedge funds have recently added to or reduced their stakes in the business. Asset Management One Co. Ltd. increased its position in IDEX by 4.2% during the fourth quarter. Asset Management One Co. Ltd. now owns 30,250 shares of the industrial products company’s stock worth $6,386,000 after acquiring an additional 1,209 shares during the period. Cerity Partners LLC raised its position in shares of IDEX by 48.3% during the third quarter. Cerity Partners LLC now owns 20,632 shares of the industrial products company’s stock valued at $4,426,000 after buying an additional 6,720 shares during the last quarter. Sumitomo Mitsui Trust Group Inc. lifted its stake in shares of IDEX by 2.7% in the third quarter. Sumitomo Mitsui Trust Group Inc. now owns 168,023 shares of the industrial products company’s stock valued at $36,041,000 after buying an additional 4,465 shares during the period. BNP PARIBAS ASSET MANAGEMENT Holding S.A. grew its position in IDEX by 7.1% during the third quarter. BNP PARIBAS ASSET MANAGEMENT Holding S.A. now owns 250,443 shares of the industrial products company’s stock worth $53,720,000 after buying an additional 16,504 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Covea Finance increased its stake in IDEX by 70.6% during the fourth 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. Institutional investors own 97.96% of the company’s stock.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

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

IDEX Company 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.