Cognex Co. (NASDAQ:CGNX) Declares $0.08 Quarterly Dividend

Cognex Co. (NASDAQ:CGNX) declared a quarterly dividend on Wednesday, February 12th,RTT News reports. Shareholders of record on Thursday, February 27th will be given a dividend of 0.08 per share by the scientific and technical instruments company on Thursday, March 13th. This represents a $0.32 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 0.82%.

Cognex has raised its dividend payment by an average of 7.6% per year over the last three years. Cognex has a dividend payout ratio of 24.8% meaning its dividend is sufficiently covered by earnings. Research analysts expect Cognex to earn $0.64 per share next year, which means the company should continue to be able to cover its $0.32 annual dividend with an expected future payout ratio of 50.0%.

Cognex Stock Down 0.9 %

Shares of NASDAQ CGNX opened at $39.25 on Thursday. The stock has a market capitalization of $6.73 billion, a PE ratio of 75.48 and a beta of 1.40. The firm has a fifty day moving average of $37.96 and a 200-day moving average of $39.22. Cognex has a 52-week low of $34.98 and a 52-week high of $53.13.

Cognex (NASDAQ:CGNX) last posted its quarterly earnings results on Wednesday, February 12th. The scientific and technical instruments company reported $0.14 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, missing analysts’ consensus estimates of $0.15 by ($0.01). Cognex had a net margin of 10.10% and a return on equity of 5.28%. Equities research analysts expect that Cognex will post 0.38 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Insider Buying and Selling at Cognex

In other Cognex news, CTO Joerg Kuechen sold 2,934 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction on Thursday, December 12th. The shares were sold at an average price of $37.75, for a total transaction of $110,758.50. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which can be accessed through this link. Also, Director Anthony Sun sold 26,000 shares of Cognex stock in a transaction dated Friday, November 22nd. The stock was sold at an average price of $40.03, for a total value of $1,040,780.00. Following the completion of the transaction, the director now owns 26,608 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $1,065,118.24. This trade represents a 49.42 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. 1.10% of the stock is owned by insiders.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

A number of research firms recently issued reports on CGNX. Cantor Fitzgerald raised shares of Cognex to a “strong-buy” rating in a research report on Friday, December 20th. Truist Financial increased their price objective on shares of Cognex from $42.00 to $43.00 and gave the stock a “hold” rating in a research report on Thursday, January 16th. Needham & Company LLC reduced their target price on shares of Cognex from $50.00 to $47.00 and set a “buy” rating on the stock in a report on Friday, November 1st. Stephens reaffirmed an “overweight” rating and set a $55.00 price target on shares of Cognex in a research report on Thursday, January 2nd. Finally, Citigroup cut their price objective on Cognex from $44.00 to $42.00 and set a “neutral” rating on the stock in a research report on Monday, January 13th. One investment analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, five have given a hold rating, six have assigned a buy rating and one has issued a strong buy rating to the stock. Based on data from MarketBeat, the company has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus target price of $47.92.

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.