IQ EQ FUND MANAGEMENT IRELAND Ltd Purchases Shares of 4,791 IDEX Corporation $IEX

IQ EQ FUND MANAGEMENT IRELAND Ltd acquired a new position in shares of IDEX Corporation (NYSE:IEX) in the second quarter, according to its most recent Form 13F filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission. The fund acquired 4,791 shares of the industrial products company’s stock, valued at approximately $841,000.

A number of other large investors have also recently made changes to their positions in IEX. GAMMA Investing LLC grew its holdings in IDEX by 49.0% during the 1st quarter. GAMMA Investing LLC now owns 915 shares of the industrial products company’s stock worth $166,000 after acquiring an additional 301 shares in the last quarter. Wealth Enhancement Advisory Services LLC lifted its position in shares of IDEX by 4.3% during the 1st quarter. Wealth Enhancement Advisory Services LLC now owns 5,139 shares of the industrial products company’s stock worth $930,000 after purchasing an additional 214 shares during the last quarter. Mirae Asset Global Investments Co. Ltd. grew its stake in shares of IDEX by 9.0% during the first quarter. Mirae Asset Global Investments Co. Ltd. now owns 10,930 shares of the industrial products company’s stock worth $1,977,000 after purchasing an additional 905 shares in the last quarter. Sumitomo Mitsui Trust Group Inc. increased its holdings in IDEX by 0.4% in the first quarter. Sumitomo Mitsui Trust Group Inc. now owns 172,732 shares of the industrial products company’s stock valued at $31,259,000 after buying an additional 631 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Amalgamated Bank increased its holdings in IDEX by 1.0% in the first quarter. Amalgamated Bank now owns 14,731 shares of the industrial products company’s stock valued at $2,666,000 after buying an additional 141 shares during the last quarter. 97.96% of the stock is currently owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

IEX has been the subject of several analyst reports. Oppenheimer set a $210.00 price objective on IDEX in a research report on Tuesday, October 7th. Stifel Nicolaus decreased their target price on IDEX from $204.00 to $191.00 and set a “buy” rating for the company in a research note on Monday, October 20th. DA Davidson set a $180.00 price target on shares of IDEX and gave the company a “neutral” rating in a research note on Monday, August 4th. Royal Bank Of Canada reduced their price objective on shares of IDEX from $207.00 to $200.00 and set an “outperform” rating for the company in a research report on Thursday, July 31st. Finally, Citigroup increased their target price on shares of IDEX from $208.00 to $216.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a research report on Monday, July 14th. Five equities research analysts have rated the stock with a Buy rating and two have assigned a Hold rating to the stock. According to MarketBeat.com, the stock has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $199.57.

IDEX Price Performance

Shares of NYSE IEX opened at $173.84 on Thursday. The stock has a market cap of $13.09 billion, a P/E ratio of 28.08, a P/E/G ratio of 1.76 and a beta of 1.04. IDEX Corporation has a twelve month low of $153.36 and a twelve month high of $238.22. The stock has a 50 day moving average of $164.19 and a two-hundred day moving average of $172.20. The company has a current ratio of 3.05, a quick ratio of 2.13 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.46.

IDEX (NYSE:IEX) last announced its earnings results on Friday, December 16th. The industrial products company reported $1.79 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter. IDEX had a net margin of 14.05% and a return on equity of 15.16%. The business had revenue of $712.00 million for the quarter. On average, research analysts forecast that IDEX Corporation will post 8.26 earnings per share for the current year.

IDEX Announces Dividend

The firm also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Friday, October 24th. Stockholders of record on Friday, October 10th were issued a $0.71 dividend. This represents a $2.84 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 1.6%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Friday, October 10th. IDEX’s dividend payout ratio is presently 45.88%.

IDEX declared that its board has initiated a share buyback program on Thursday, September 18th that authorizes the company to buyback $1.00 billion in outstanding shares. This buyback authorization authorizes the industrial products company to buy up to 8.3% of its shares through open market purchases. Shares buyback programs are typically an indication that the company’s leadership believes its stock is undervalued.

About IDEX

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.