Daiwa Securities Group Inc. Has $298,000 Stake in Cognex Co. (NASDAQ:CGNX)

Daiwa Securities Group Inc. lowered its stake in shares of Cognex Co. (NASDAQ:CGNX) by 56.6% in the fourth quarter, according to its most recent 13F filing with the SEC. The fund owned 7,140 shares of the scientific and technical instruments company’s stock after selling 9,294 shares during the period. Daiwa Securities Group Inc.’s holdings in Cognex were worth $298,000 as of its most recent SEC filing.

A number of other hedge funds have also added to or reduced their stakes in CGNX. Nordea Investment Management AB boosted its stake 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 valued at $86,862,000 after purchasing an additional 1,260,282 shares during the last quarter. Lazard Asset Management LLC boosted its stake 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 valued at $234,962,000 after purchasing an additional 837,487 shares during the last quarter. Impax Asset Management Group plc boosted its stake 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 valued at $119,320,000 after purchasing an additional 387,860 shares during the last quarter. Assenagon Asset Management S.A. acquired a new position in Cognex during the 4th quarter valued at about $12,417,000. Finally, Invesco Ltd. boosted its stake 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 valued at $88,386,000 after purchasing an additional 192,206 shares during the last quarter. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 88.12% of the company’s stock.

Wall Street Analyst Weigh In

CGNX has been the topic of several recent analyst reports. UBS Group raised shares of Cognex from a “neutral” rating to a “buy” rating and lifted their target price for the stock from $42.00 to $54.00 in a research report on Tuesday, March 19th. StockNews.com cut shares of Cognex from a “hold” rating to a “sell” rating in a research report on Monday, February 19th. Truist Financial initiated coverage on shares of Cognex in a research report on Thursday, March 14th. They set a “buy” rating and a $47.00 target price on the stock. Finally, Citigroup lifted their target price on shares of Cognex from $41.00 to $43.00 and gave the stock a “neutral” rating in a research report on Monday, April 8th. Three analysts have rated the stock with a sell rating, five have assigned a hold rating, four have assigned a buy rating and one has issued a strong buy rating to the company’s stock. According to data from MarketBeat, Cognex has a consensus rating of “Hold” and a consensus price target of $47.70.

Cognex Price Performance

Shares of CGNX stock opened at $40.61 on Friday. The company’s fifty day simple moving average is $40.40 and its two-hundred day simple moving average is $38.81. Cognex Co. has a 1 year low of $34.28 and a 1 year high of $59.51. The stock has a market capitalization of $6.97 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 61.53 and a beta of 1.49.

Cognex (NASDAQ:CGNX) last issued its earnings results on Thursday, February 15th. The scientific and technical instruments company reported $0.11 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $0.07 by $0.04. Cognex had a net margin of 13.52% and a return on equity of 6.86%. The business had revenue of $196.70 million for the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $189.16 million. During the same quarter in the previous year, the firm posted $0.27 EPS. The business’s revenue for the quarter was down 17.8% compared to the same quarter last year. Equities research analysts anticipate that Cognex Co. will post 0.44 EPS for the current year.

Cognex Announces Dividend

The company also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Thursday, March 14th. Stockholders of record on Thursday, February 29th were given a dividend of $0.075 per share. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Wednesday, February 28th. This represents a $0.30 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 0.74%. Cognex’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is currently 45.46%.

Insider Activity

In other news, EVP Carl Gerst sold 6,782 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction on Wednesday, March 6th. The shares were sold at an average price of $40.54, for a total transaction of $274,942.28. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available through the SEC website. Company insiders own 1.10% of the company’s stock.

Cognex Company 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.