LPL Financial LLC Trims Holdings in Cognex Corporation $CGNX

LPL Financial LLC trimmed its position in Cognex Corporation (NASDAQ:CGNX) by 2.7% during the first quarter, according to the company in its most recent 13F filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The institutional investor owned 46,087 shares of the scientific and technical instruments company’s stock after selling 1,294 shares during the period. LPL Financial LLC’s holdings in Cognex were worth $1,375,000 at the end of the most recent reporting period.

A number of other institutional investors and hedge funds also recently modified their holdings of the stock. Barclays PLC increased its position in Cognex by 78.2% during the 4th quarter. Barclays PLC now owns 148,060 shares of the scientific and technical instruments company’s stock worth $5,310,000 after purchasing an additional 64,953 shares in the last quarter. First Trust Advisors LP increased its position in Cognex by 18.5% during the 4th quarter. First Trust Advisors LP now owns 89,544 shares of the scientific and technical instruments company’s stock worth $3,211,000 after purchasing an additional 13,951 shares in the last quarter. Dimensional Fund Advisors LP grew its position in Cognex by 6.6% in the fourth quarter. Dimensional Fund Advisors LP now owns 1,902,930 shares of the scientific and technical instruments company’s stock valued at $68,239,000 after acquiring an additional 117,089 shares in the last quarter. BI Asset Management Fondsmaeglerselskab A S grew its position in Cognex by 39.1% in the fourth quarter. BI Asset Management Fondsmaeglerselskab A S now owns 2,817 shares of the scientific and technical instruments company’s stock valued at $101,000 after acquiring an additional 792 shares in the last quarter. Finally, MetLife Investment Management LLC grew its position in Cognex by 9.0% in the fourth quarter. MetLife Investment Management LLC now owns 97,099 shares of the scientific and technical instruments company’s stock valued at $3,482,000 after acquiring an additional 8,030 shares in the last quarter. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 88.12% of the company’s stock.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

Several equities analysts recently issued reports on the company. Robert W. Baird raised their price objective on Cognex from $30.00 to $32.00 and gave the stock a “neutral” rating in a research note on Monday, June 16th. TD Cowen raised Cognex from a “hold” rating to a “buy” rating and set a $35.00 target price on the stock in a research report on Monday, April 28th. KeyCorp raised Cognex from a “sector weight” rating to an “overweight” rating and set a $50.00 target price on the stock in a research report on Friday, August 1st. Melius raised Cognex from a “hold” rating to a “buy” rating and set a $60.00 price target on the stock in a report on Thursday, July 10th. Finally, The Goldman Sachs Group lifted their target price on Cognex from $29.00 to $32.00 and gave the stock a “sell” rating in a report on Thursday, June 12th. One research analyst has rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, seven have issued a Buy rating, six have issued a Hold rating and one has given a Sell rating to the stock. Based on data from MarketBeat, the company has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus target price of $42.31.

Cognex Stock Up 4.7%

NASDAQ:CGNX opened at $44.76 on Friday. Cognex Corporation has a 1-year low of $22.67 and a 1-year high of $44.87. The firm has a market capitalization of $7.52 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 63.04 and a beta of 1.47. The stock has a fifty day simple moving average of $35.85 and a 200 day simple moving average of $32.14.

Cognex (NASDAQ:CGNX) last announced its quarterly earnings data on Wednesday, July 30th. The scientific and technical instruments company reported $0.25 EPS for the quarter, topping analysts’ consensus estimates of $0.23 by $0.02. Cognex had a return on equity of 6.65% and a net margin of 13.13%.The firm had revenue of $249.09 million during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $246.70 million. During the same period last year, the company posted $0.23 EPS. The business’s quarterly revenue was up 4.2% compared to the same quarter last year. Cognex has set its Q3 2025 guidance at 0.240-0.290 EPS. Equities analysts predict that Cognex Corporation will post 0.61 earnings per share for the current year.

Cognex Dividend Announcement

The firm also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Thursday, August 28th. Shareholders of record on Thursday, August 14th will be given a dividend of $0.08 per share. The ex-dividend date is Thursday, August 14th. This represents a $0.32 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 0.7%. Cognex’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is presently 45.07%.

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.