IDEX Co. (NYSE:IEX) Declares Dividend Increase – $0.69 Per Share

IDEX Co. (NYSE:IEX) declared a quarterly dividend on Tuesday, May 7th, RTT News reports. Shareholders of record on Friday, May 17th will be given a dividend of 0.69 per share by the industrial products company on Friday, May 31st. This represents a $2.76 annualized dividend and a yield of 1.24%. This is a positive change from IDEX’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.64.

IDEX has increased its dividend by an average of 8.0% per year over the last three years and has raised its dividend every year for the last 14 years. IDEX has a dividend payout ratio of 28.1% meaning its dividend is sufficiently covered by earnings. Equities research analysts expect IDEX to earn $9.20 per share next year, which means the company should continue to be able to cover its $2.56 annual dividend with an expected future payout ratio of 27.8%.

IDEX Trading Up 0.3 %

IEX stock traded up $0.77 during mid-day trading on Wednesday, hitting $222.52. 8,423 shares of the company were exchanged, compared to its average volume of 377,018. The business has a fifty day simple moving average of $234.66 and a 200-day simple moving average of $217.88. The firm has a market capitalization of $16.84 billion, a P/E ratio of 29.17, a PEG ratio of 2.21 and a beta of 0.99. IDEX has a 12-month low of $183.76 and a 12-month high of $246.36. The company has a quick ratio of 2.45, a current ratio of 3.37 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.37.

IDEX (NYSE:IEX) last posted its earnings results on Tuesday, April 23rd. The industrial products company reported $1.88 earnings per share for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $1.76 by $0.12. IDEX had a net margin of 17.89% and a return on equity of 17.60%. The firm had revenue of $801.00 million during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $807.52 million. During the same quarter last year, the firm earned $2.09 EPS. The firm’s revenue for the quarter was down 5.3% on a year-over-year basis. On average, equities research analysts predict that IDEX will post 8.33 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

Several equities research analysts have recently weighed in on IEX shares. Citigroup raised their target price on IDEX from $254.00 to $277.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a research report on Monday, April 8th. StockNews.com lowered shares of IDEX from a “buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a research report on Thursday, May 2nd. Stifel Nicolaus upgraded shares of IDEX from a “hold” rating to a “buy” rating and raised their target price for the stock from $215.00 to $265.00 in a research note on Thursday, February 8th. Royal Bank of Canada reissued an “outperform” rating and set a $255.00 target price on shares of IDEX in a research note on Thursday, March 21st. Finally, Oppenheimer increased their price target on shares of IDEX from $245.00 to $252.00 and gave the company an “outperform” rating in a report on Thursday, April 18th. Two analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and six have issued a buy rating to the company’s stock. According to data from MarketBeat.com, the company presently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus price target of $250.71.

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.