IDEX Co. (NYSE:IEX) Short Interest Update

IDEX Co. (NYSE:IEX) was the recipient of a significant decrease in short interest in the month of March. As of March 15th, there was short interest totalling 805,500 shares, a decrease of 5.8% from the February 29th total of 855,300 shares. Currently, 1.1% of the shares of the company are sold short. Based on an average daily volume of 389,600 shares, the days-to-cover ratio is currently 2.1 days.

Institutional Inflows and Outflows

Hedge funds have recently bought and sold shares of the stock. Parkside Financial Bank & Trust increased its stake in shares of IDEX by 120.3% in the first quarter. Parkside Financial Bank & Trust now owns 141 shares of the industrial products company’s stock valued at $27,000 after buying an additional 77 shares in the last quarter. Planned Solutions Inc. acquired a new stake in shares of IDEX in the fourth quarter valued at $33,000. Clear Street Markets LLC increased its stake in shares of IDEX by 94.7% in the first quarter. Clear Street Markets LLC now owns 148 shares of the industrial products company’s stock valued at $34,000 after buying an additional 72 shares in the last quarter. Quarry LP bought a new position in IDEX in the fourth quarter valued at about $36,000. Finally, West Tower Group LLC bought a new position in IDEX in the second quarter valued at about $42,000. 97.96% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

A number of equities research analysts have issued reports on IEX shares. Stifel Nicolaus raised IDEX from a “hold” rating to a “buy” rating and upped their target price for the stock from $215.00 to $265.00 in a research report on Thursday, February 8th. Royal Bank of Canada reissued an “outperform” rating and issued a $255.00 price objective on shares of IDEX in a research report on Thursday, March 21st. Two research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and five have given a buy rating to the company’s stock. According to MarketBeat.com, the company currently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $235.56.

IDEX Stock Down 1.2 %

Shares of IEX stock opened at $240.98 on Tuesday. The stock has a market cap of $18.24 billion, a P/E ratio of 30.74, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 2.44 and a beta of 0.97. IDEX has a one year low of $183.76 and a one year high of $246.36. The stock has a fifty day moving average price of $231.27 and a 200 day moving average price of $213.60. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.37, a current ratio of 2.89 and a quick ratio of 2.05.

IDEX (NYSE:IEX) last released its quarterly earnings data on Tuesday, February 6th. The industrial products company reported $1.83 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $1.78 by $0.05. IDEX had a return on equity of 18.56% and a net margin of 18.21%. The firm had revenue of $788.90 million during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $767.96 million. During the same period in the prior year, the company posted $2.01 earnings per share. The business’s revenue for the quarter was down 2.7% compared to the same quarter last year. Analysts predict that IDEX will post 8.35 earnings per share for the current year.

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.