Truist Financial Corp Acquires 20,976 Shares of Cognex Co. (NASDAQ:CGNX)

Truist Financial Corp increased its holdings in Cognex Co. (NASDAQ:CGNX) by 24.5% in the fourth quarter, HoldingsChannel reports. The firm owned 106,743 shares of the scientific and technical instruments company’s stock after purchasing an additional 20,976 shares during the period. Truist Financial Corp’s holdings in Cognex were worth $4,455,000 as of its most recent SEC filing.

Other large investors have also recently bought and sold shares of the company. Nordea Investment Management AB lifted its position in Cognex by 156.5% during the 4th quarter. Nordea Investment Management AB now owns 2,065,693 shares of the scientific and technical instruments company’s stock worth $86,862,000 after acquiring an additional 1,260,282 shares during the last quarter. Lazard Asset Management LLC lifted its position in Cognex by 17.8% during the 3rd quarter. Lazard Asset Management LLC now owns 5,536,355 shares of the scientific and technical instruments company’s stock worth $234,962,000 after acquiring an additional 837,487 shares during the last quarter. Impax Asset Management Group plc lifted its position in Cognex by 16.0% during the 3rd quarter. Impax Asset Management Group plc now owns 2,811,495 shares of the scientific and technical instruments company’s stock worth $119,320,000 after acquiring an additional 387,860 shares during the last quarter. Assenagon Asset Management S.A. acquired a new position in Cognex during the 4th quarter worth $12,417,000. Finally, Invesco Ltd. lifted its position in Cognex by 10.2% during the 3rd quarter. Invesco Ltd. now owns 2,082,608 shares of the scientific and technical instruments company’s stock worth $88,386,000 after acquiring an additional 192,206 shares during the last quarter. 88.12% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors.

Analyst Ratings Changes

A number of research firms have weighed in on CGNX. UBS Group raised shares of Cognex from a “neutral” rating to a “buy” rating and boosted their target price for the stock from $42.00 to $54.00 in a research report on Tuesday, March 19th. Sanford C. Bernstein upped their price objective on shares of Cognex from $52.00 to $55.00 and gave the company an “outperform” rating in a research report on Friday. Robert W. Baird upped their price objective on shares of Cognex from $40.00 to $44.00 and gave the company a “neutral” rating in a research report on Friday. Stephens upped their price objective on shares of Cognex from $40.00 to $45.00 and gave the company an “equal weight” rating in a research report on Friday. Finally, Citigroup upped their price objective on shares of Cognex from $41.00 to $43.00 and gave the company a “neutral” rating in a research report on Monday, April 8th. Three analysts have rated the stock with a sell rating, six have given a hold rating, five have issued a buy rating and one has given a strong buy rating to the company. According to MarketBeat, the stock presently has an average rating of “Hold” and an average price target of $48.58.

Insiders Place Their Bets

In other Cognex news, EVP Carl Gerst sold 6,782 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction dated Wednesday, March 6th. The shares were sold at an average price of $40.54, for a total transaction of $274,942.28. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which can be accessed through this link. Insiders own 1.10% of the company’s stock.

Cognex Trading Up 1.0 %

Shares of Cognex stock opened at $43.79 on Monday. The stock has a market capitalization of $7.52 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 75.50 and a beta of 1.48. Cognex Co. has a 1-year low of $34.28 and a 1-year high of $59.51. The firm’s 50-day moving average price is $40.67 and its two-hundred day moving average price is $38.90.

Cognex (NASDAQ:CGNX) last issued its quarterly earnings data on Thursday, February 15th. The scientific and technical instruments company reported $0.11 earnings per share for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $0.07 by $0.04. The firm had revenue of $196.70 million for the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $189.16 million. Cognex had a net margin of 11.76% and a return on equity of 6.81%. The company’s quarterly revenue was down 17.8% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same period in the prior year, the firm earned $0.27 earnings per share. As a group, equities research analysts predict that Cognex Co. will post 0.44 EPS for the current year.

Cognex Announces Dividend

The company also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Thursday, May 30th. Shareholders of record on Thursday, May 16th will be paid a dividend of $0.075 per share. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Wednesday, May 15th. This represents a $0.30 annualized dividend and a yield of 0.69%. Cognex’s dividend payout ratio is 51.72%.

Cognex Profile

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.