Louisiana State Employees Retirement System Buys Shares of 48,300 Cognex Co. (NASDAQ:CGNX)

Louisiana State Employees Retirement System bought a new stake in Cognex Co. (NASDAQ:CGNX) during the fourth quarter, according to the company in its most recent filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). The fund bought 48,300 shares of the scientific and technical instruments company’s stock, valued at approximately $2,016,000.

A number of other hedge funds and other institutional investors have also recently bought and sold shares of the business. BlackRock Inc. grew its position in Cognex by 0.5% in the first quarter. BlackRock Inc. now owns 17,207,485 shares of the scientific and technical instruments company’s stock valued at $852,631,000 after acquiring an additional 87,789 shares during the last quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. grew its position in Cognex by 1.1% in the third quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 15,895,177 shares of the scientific and technical instruments company’s stock valued at $658,855,000 after acquiring an additional 180,188 shares during the last quarter. State Street Corp grew its position in Cognex by 0.8% in the first quarter. State Street Corp now owns 5,778,896 shares of the scientific and technical instruments company’s stock valued at $445,842,000 after acquiring an additional 45,764 shares during the last quarter. Lazard Asset Management LLC grew its position in Cognex by 17.8% in the third 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 acquiring an additional 837,487 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Alliancebernstein L.P. grew its position in Cognex by 3.0% in the fourth quarter. Alliancebernstein L.P. now owns 5,294,480 shares of the scientific and technical instruments company’s stock valued at $249,423,000 after acquiring an additional 151,776 shares during the last quarter. Institutional investors own 88.12% of the company’s stock.

Insider Buying and Selling at Cognex

In other Cognex news, EVP Carl Gerst sold 6,782 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Wednesday, March 6th. The stock was sold at an average price of $40.54, for a total value of $274,942.28. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which is available through the SEC website. Insiders own 1.30% of the company’s stock.

Cognex Price Performance

Shares of CGNX stock opened at $39.21 on Thursday. The business’s 50 day simple moving average is $40.04 and its 200 day simple moving average is $38.90. Cognex Co. has a one year low of $34.28 and a one year high of $59.51. The stock has a market capitalization of $6.73 billion, a PE ratio of 59.41 and a beta of 1.49.

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

Cognex Announces Dividend

The firm also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Thursday, March 14th. Shareholders of record on Thursday, February 29th were paid a $0.075 dividend. This represents a $0.30 annualized dividend and a yield of 0.77%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Wednesday, February 28th. Cognex’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is presently 45.46%.

Analyst Ratings Changes

Several research firms have recently weighed in on CGNX. Truist Financial began coverage on Cognex in a report on Thursday, March 14th. They set a “buy” rating and a $47.00 price target on the stock. StockNews.com cut Cognex from a “hold” rating to a “sell” rating in a report on Monday, February 19th. UBS Group upgraded Cognex from a “neutral” rating to a “buy” rating and boosted their price target for the stock from $42.00 to $54.00 in a report on Tuesday, March 19th. Finally, Citigroup boosted their price target on Cognex from $41.00 to $43.00 and gave the stock a “neutral” rating in a report on Monday, April 8th. Three research analysts have rated the stock with a sell rating, five have issued a hold rating, four have given a buy rating and one has issued a strong buy rating to the company. According to MarketBeat, the stock has an average rating of “Hold” and an average price target of $47.70.

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.