Retirement Systems of Alabama Purchases 473 Shares of Cognex Co. (NASDAQ:CGNX)

Retirement Systems of Alabama boosted its position in shares of Cognex Co. (NASDAQ:CGNX) by 0.2% in the fourth quarter, according to the company in its most recent disclosure with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The fund owned 215,600 shares of the scientific and technical instruments company’s stock after buying an additional 473 shares during the period. Retirement Systems of Alabama owned approximately 0.13% of Cognex worth $8,999,000 as of its most recent SEC filing.

Other institutional investors have also added to or reduced their stakes in the company. United Services Automobile Association raised its position in shares of Cognex by 2.4% during the 3rd quarter. United Services Automobile Association now owns 11,682 shares of the scientific and technical instruments company’s stock valued at $496,000 after buying an additional 279 shares in the last quarter. Parkside Financial Bank & Trust lifted its stake in shares of Cognex by 11.9% in the 4th quarter. Parkside Financial Bank & Trust now owns 2,760 shares of the scientific and technical instruments company’s stock valued at $115,000 after purchasing an additional 294 shares during the last quarter. Treasurer of the State of North Carolina boosted its holdings in shares of Cognex by 0.4% in the 3rd quarter. Treasurer of the State of North Carolina now owns 78,043 shares of the scientific and technical instruments company’s stock worth $3,312,000 after purchasing an additional 300 shares during the period. Teacher Retirement System of Texas increased its position in shares of Cognex by 2.4% during the 3rd quarter. Teacher Retirement System of Texas now owns 13,374 shares of the scientific and technical instruments company’s stock valued at $568,000 after purchasing an additional 313 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Itau Unibanco Holding S.A. raised its holdings in Cognex by 71.1% during the 3rd quarter. Itau Unibanco Holding S.A. now owns 804 shares of the scientific and technical instruments company’s stock valued at $34,000 after buying an additional 334 shares during the period. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 88.12% of the company’s stock.

Analyst Ratings Changes

CGNX has been the subject of several recent analyst reports. Truist Financial assumed coverage on shares of Cognex in a research note on Thursday, March 14th. They set a “buy” rating and a $47.00 price objective for the company. Sanford C. Bernstein increased their price objective on shares of Cognex from $52.00 to $55.00 and gave the stock an “outperform” rating in a research report on Friday. StockNews.com lowered Cognex from a “hold” rating to a “sell” rating in a research report on Monday, February 19th. UBS Group upgraded Cognex from a “neutral” rating to a “buy” rating and increased their price target for the stock from $42.00 to $54.00 in a report on Tuesday, March 19th. Finally, Robert W. Baird increased their target price on Cognex from $40.00 to $44.00 and gave the stock a “neutral” rating in a research note on Friday. Three equities research analysts have rated the stock with a sell rating, six have assigned a hold rating, five have issued a buy rating and one has assigned a strong buy rating to the company’s stock. According to data from MarketBeat, Cognex currently has a consensus rating of “Hold” and an average price target of $48.58.

Cognex Stock Performance

CGNX stock opened at $43.79 on Friday. The firm has a 50-day simple moving average of $40.67 and a two-hundred day simple moving average of $38.89. Cognex Co. has a one year low of $34.28 and a one year high of $59.51. The firm has a market cap of $7.52 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 66.35 and a beta of 1.48.

Cognex (NASDAQ:CGNX) last announced its earnings results on Thursday, February 15th. The scientific and technical instruments company reported $0.11 earnings per share for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $0.07 by $0.04. Cognex had a net margin of 13.52% and a return on equity of 6.86%. The company had revenue of $196.70 million during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $189.16 million. During the same period last year, the firm earned $0.27 earnings per share. Cognex’s revenue was down 17.8% compared to the same quarter last year. As a group, equities analysts predict that Cognex Co. will post 0.44 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Cognex Dividend Announcement

The firm also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Thursday, May 30th. Shareholders of record on Thursday, May 16th will be paid a $0.075 dividend. This represents a $0.30 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 0.69%. The ex-dividend date is Wednesday, May 15th. Cognex’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is presently 45.46%.

Insiders Place Their Bets

In other 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 transaction was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which is accessible through the SEC website. Corporate insiders own 1.10% 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.