Pallas Capital Advisors LLC Purchases Shares of 14,105 Cognex Corporation $CGNX

Pallas Capital Advisors LLC purchased a new position in Cognex Corporation (NASDAQ:CGNX) in the second quarter, according to the company in its most recent 13F filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). The institutional investor purchased 14,105 shares of the scientific and technical instruments company’s stock, valued at approximately $1,021,000.

A number of other large investors have also recently made changes to their positions in the stock. Northwestern Mutual Wealth Management Co. increased its holdings in Cognex by 173,138.2% in the 4th quarter. Northwestern Mutual Wealth Management Co. now owns 10,477,448 shares of the scientific and technical instruments company’s stock worth $376,979,000 after acquiring an additional 10,471,400 shares in the last quarter. Norges Bank purchased a new position in Cognex during the fourth quarter valued at approximately $73,103,000. Alyeska Investment Group L.P. purchased a new position in Cognex during the fourth quarter valued at approximately $68,388,000. Bank of New York Mellon Corp bought a new position in shares of Cognex in the second quarter worth approximately $129,348,000. Finally, AQR Capital Management LLC boosted its position in shares of Cognex by 18,810.9% in the second quarter. AQR Capital Management LLC now owns 1,794,649 shares of the scientific and technical instruments company’s stock worth $56,657,000 after purchasing an additional 1,785,159 shares during the period. 88.12% of the stock is owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

Several brokerages have recently commented on CGNX. Stephens raised their price objective on shares of Cognex from $65.00 to $75.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a research report on Thursday, May 7th. Barclays reiterated an “overweight” rating and issued a $80.00 price target (up from $75.00) on shares of Cognex in a research note on Monday, August 10th. Sanford C. Bernstein reissued an “outperform” rating and set a $75.00 price target on shares of Cognex in a report on Thursday, May 7th. DA Davidson set a $65.00 price objective on Cognex and gave the stock a “neutral” rating in a research note on Monday, August 10th. Finally, UBS Group set a $75.00 target price on Cognex in a research report on Tuesday, May 26th. Two investment analysts have rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, ten have issued a Buy rating and five have issued a Hold rating to the stock. According to MarketBeat, the stock currently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average price target of $75.64.

Cognex Stock Performance

CGNX opened at $63.41 on Wednesday. The stock has a market capitalization of $10.67 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 61.56 and a beta of 1.49. The company has a fifty day moving average of $64.99 and a 200 day moving average of $58.44. Cognex Corporation has a fifty-two week low of $34.60 and a fifty-two week high of $72.88.

Cognex (NASDAQ:CGNX) last posted its earnings results on Wednesday, August 5th. The scientific and technical instruments company reported $0.45 EPS for the quarter, topping analysts’ consensus estimates of $0.42 by $0.03. Cognex had a return on equity of 13.50% and a net margin of 16.05%.The company had revenue of $291.26 million for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $292.10 million. During the same period in the previous year, the business earned $0.25 earnings per share. The firm’s revenue for the quarter was up 16.9% on a year-over-year basis. Cognex has set its FY 2026 guidance at 1.640-1.680 EPS and its Q3 2026 guidance at 0.500-0.540 EPS. On average, equities research analysts forecast that Cognex Corporation will post 1.68 earnings per share for the current year.

Cognex Dividend Announcement

The firm also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Thursday, September 3rd. Investors of record on Thursday, August 20th will be paid a dividend of $0.085 per share. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Thursday, August 20th. This represents a $0.34 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 0.5%. Cognex’s dividend payout ratio is presently 33.01%.

Insider Buying and Selling

In other Cognex news, VP Darren Marc Long sold 20,252 shares of Cognex stock in a transaction on Wednesday, May 27th. The shares were sold at an average price of $66.34, for a total value of $1,343,517.68. Following the completion of the transaction, the vice president directly owned 3,990 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $264,696.60. This trade represents a 83.54% decrease in their position. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which is available at this link. 1.70% of the stock is owned by company insiders.

Cognex Profile

Cognex Corporation is a leading provider of machine vision systems, software, sensors and industrial barcode readers used to automate manufacturing, logistics and distribution processes. The company designs and develops vision-based products that help manufacturers and logistics operators inspect, identify and guide parts, assemblies and packaged goods in real time. Its solutions are applied in a broad range of industries, including automotive, electronics, semiconductor, pharmaceutical, food and beverage, and general manufacturing.

The company’s product portfolio includes stand-alone vision systems, vision sensors and deep learning-based software platforms that enable automated inspection, quality control and traceability.