Cognex Co. (NASDAQ:CGNX – Get Rating) shares gapped down before the market opened on Friday after Cowen lowered their price target on the stock from $50.00 to $48.00. The stock had previously closed at $55.31, but opened at $48.75. Cognex shares last traded at $47.73, with a volume of 348,977 shares trading hands.
Several other equities research analysts also recently weighed in on the stock. Cowen downgraded shares of Cognex from an “outperform” rating to a “market perform” rating and reduced their price objective for the stock from $55.00 to $50.00 in a report on Tuesday, November 22nd. Credit Suisse Group assumed coverage on shares of Cognex in a report on Monday, December 12th. They issued an “underperform” rating and a $41.00 price objective for the company. Morgan Stanley downgraded shares of Cognex from an “equal weight” rating to an “underweight” rating and reduced their price objective for the stock from $41.00 to $40.00 in a report on Tuesday, January 17th. Northcoast Research downgraded shares of Cognex from a “buy” rating to a “neutral” rating in a report on Wednesday, February 1st. Finally, Needham & Company LLC upped their price target on shares of Cognex from $54.00 to $58.00 in a report on Friday. Four research analysts have rated the stock with a sell rating, six have given a hold rating, two have assigned a buy rating and one has assigned a strong buy rating to the stock. According to MarketBeat, Cognex presently has a consensus rating of “Hold” and an average price target of $52.08.
Insider Activity
In other news, Director Theodor Krantz sold 52,000 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction dated Monday, December 12th. The stock was sold at an average price of $50.00, for a total value of $2,600,000.00. Following the transaction, the director now owns 36,108 shares in the company, valued at approximately $1,805,400. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available through the SEC website. 4.10% of the stock is owned by corporate insiders.
Hedge Funds Weigh In On Cognex
Large investors have recently made changes to their positions in the business. Tobam acquired a new position in shares of Cognex in the 2nd quarter valued at about $30,000. Allworth Financial LP grew its stake in shares of Cognex by 86.6% in the 4th quarter. Allworth Financial LP now owns 793 shares of the scientific and technical instruments company’s stock valued at $37,000 after buying an additional 368 shares in the last quarter. Janiczek Wealth Management LLC grew its stake in shares of Cognex by 58.7% in the 4th quarter. Janiczek Wealth Management LLC now owns 833 shares of the scientific and technical instruments company’s stock valued at $44,000 after buying an additional 308 shares in the last quarter. Altshuler Shaham Ltd bought a new stake in shares of Cognex in the 4th quarter valued at approximately $44,000. Finally, Pinnacle Financial Partners Inc. bought a new stake in shares of Cognex in the 3rd quarter valued at approximately $48,000. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 91.24% of the company’s stock.
Cognex Stock Performance
The firm has a market cap of $8.26 billion, a P/E ratio of 39.45 and a beta of 1.60. The company has a 50 day moving average of $51.28 and a 200 day moving average of $47.60.
Cognex (NASDAQ:CGNX – Get Rating) last announced its quarterly earnings results on Thursday, February 16th. The scientific and technical instruments company reported $0.32 EPS for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $0.31 by $0.01. The business had revenue of $239.43 million during the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $245.09 million. Cognex had a return on equity of 16.89% and a net margin of 21.15%. The firm’s quarterly revenue was down 1.9% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same quarter in the previous year, the business posted $0.30 EPS. As a group, analysts expect that Cognex Co. will post 1.07 EPS for the current fiscal year.
About Cognex
Cognex Corp. engages in the provision of machine vision technologies. Its products are used to automate the manufacturing and tracking of discrete items, such as mobile phones, aspirin bottles, and automobile tires, by locating, identifying, inspecting, and measuring them during the manufacturing or distribution process.