Stephens Reaffirms Overweight Rating for Cognex (NASDAQ:CGNX)

Stephens reissued their overweight rating on shares of Cognex (NASDAQ:CGNX) in a report released on Thursday morning,Benzinga reports. Stephens currently has a $55.00 price objective on the scientific and technical instruments company’s stock.

Several other equities analysts also recently weighed in on the company. Truist Financial reduced their target price on Cognex from $43.00 to $42.00 and set a “hold” rating on the stock in a research report on Thursday, December 19th. Needham & Company LLC decreased their target price on shares of Cognex from $50.00 to $47.00 and set a “buy” rating on the stock in a research report on Friday, November 1st. Finally, Cantor Fitzgerald upgraded shares of Cognex to a “strong-buy” rating in a report on Friday, December 20th. One analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, five have given a hold rating, six have given a buy rating and one has issued a strong buy rating to the stock. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, Cognex has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average price target of $47.92.

Cognex Trading Down 0.4 %

Shares of CGNX stock opened at $35.70 on Thursday. The company has a market capitalization of $6.12 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 68.66 and a beta of 1.39. The firm has a 50-day moving average price of $38.88 and a 200 day moving average price of $41.24. Cognex has a twelve month low of $34.79 and a twelve month high of $53.13.

Cognex Increases Dividend

The firm also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Friday, November 29th. Investors of record on Thursday, November 14th were issued a $0.08 dividend. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Thursday, November 14th. This represents a $0.32 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 0.90%. This is an increase from Cognex’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.08. Cognex’s dividend payout ratio is currently 61.54%.

Insiders Place Their Bets

In other Cognex news, CTO Joerg Kuechen sold 2,934 shares of the stock in a transaction on Thursday, December 12th. The stock was sold at an average price of $37.75, for a total value of $110,758.50. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which is available through this link. Also, Director Anthony Sun sold 26,000 shares of Cognex stock in a transaction dated Friday, November 22nd. The shares were sold at an average price of $40.03, for a total transaction of $1,040,780.00. Following the completion of the sale, the director now owns 26,608 shares in the company, valued at approximately $1,065,118.24. This represents a 49.42 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. 1.30% of the stock is owned by company insiders.

Institutional Inflows and Outflows

Hedge funds have recently made changes to their positions in the stock. Signaturefd LLC lifted its holdings in shares of Cognex by 43.2% during the second quarter. Signaturefd LLC now owns 1,704 shares of the scientific and technical instruments company’s stock valued at $80,000 after purchasing an additional 514 shares during the last quarter. Van ECK Associates Corp boosted its holdings in shares of Cognex by 10.0% in the second quarter. Van ECK Associates Corp now owns 71,368 shares of the scientific and technical instruments company’s stock worth $3,337,000 after buying an additional 6,513 shares during the period. Roubaix Capital LLC increased its position in shares of Cognex by 18.1% in the second quarter. Roubaix Capital LLC now owns 77,972 shares of the scientific and technical instruments company’s stock worth $3,646,000 after acquiring an additional 11,973 shares in the last quarter. Arizona State Retirement System increased its position in shares of Cognex by 1.7% in the second quarter. Arizona State Retirement System now owns 48,102 shares of the scientific and technical instruments company’s stock worth $2,249,000 after acquiring an additional 793 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Impax Asset Management Group plc raised its holdings in shares of Cognex by 32.8% during the second quarter. Impax Asset Management Group plc now owns 5,098,711 shares of the scientific and technical instruments company’s stock valued at $237,812,000 after acquiring an additional 1,259,116 shares during the period. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 88.12% of the company’s stock.

About Cognex

Cognex Corporation provides machine vision products that capture and analyze visual information to automate manufacturing and distribution tasks worldwide. Its machine vision products are used to automate the manufacturing and tracking of discrete items, including mobile phones, electric vehicle batteries, and e-commerce packages by locating, identifying, inspecting, and measuring them during the manufacturing or distribution process.