Principal Financial Group Inc. Decreases Stock Holdings in Cognex Co. (NASDAQ:CGNX)

Principal Financial Group Inc. decreased its stake in Cognex Co. (NASDAQ:CGNX - Free Report) by 76.4% in the 3rd quarter, according to the company in its most recent disclosure with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The firm owned 400,191 shares of the scientific and technical instruments company's stock after selling 1,293,686 shares during the period. Principal Financial Group Inc. owned 0.23% of Cognex worth $16,208,000 as of its most recent filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

A number of other hedge funds and other institutional investors also recently made changes to their positions in the stock. William Blair Investment Management LLC boosted its stake in Cognex by 8.1% during the second quarter. William Blair Investment Management LLC now owns 4,018,539 shares of the scientific and technical instruments company's stock worth $187,907,000 after acquiring an additional 301,916 shares in the last quarter. Dimensional Fund Advisors LP increased its position in Cognex by 33.8% in the 2nd quarter. Dimensional Fund Advisors LP now owns 1,621,629 shares of the scientific and technical instruments company's stock valued at $75,828,000 after buying an additional 409,502 shares in the last quarter. Bridges Investment Management Inc. acquired a new position in Cognex during the 2nd quarter worth approximately $980,000. Legacy Advisors LLC grew its stake in Cognex by 15.3% in the second quarter. Legacy Advisors LLC now owns 17,625 shares of the scientific and technical instruments company's stock valued at $824,000 after acquiring an additional 2,344 shares during the period. Finally, Mackenzie Financial Corp increased its holdings in shares of Cognex by 16.3% during the second quarter. Mackenzie Financial Corp now owns 1,494,312 shares of the scientific and technical instruments company's stock valued at $69,874,000 after acquiring an additional 209,630 shares in the last quarter. 88.12% of the stock is owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

Insider Activity

In other news, Director Anthony Sun sold 26,000 shares of the business's stock in a transaction that occurred on Friday, November 22nd. The shares were sold at an average price of $40.03, for a total value of $1,040,780.00. Following the sale, the director now owns 26,608 shares of the company's stock, valued at $1,065,118.24. The trade was a 49.42 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which is available at the SEC website. Also, CTO Joerg Kuechen sold 2,934 shares of the firm's stock in a transaction that occurred on Thursday, December 12th. The stock was sold at an average price of $37.75, for a total transaction of $110,758.50. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders own 1.10% of the company's stock.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

Several research firms recently issued reports on CGNX. Truist Financial reduced their price target on shares of Cognex from $43.00 to $42.00 and set a "hold" rating for the company in a research report on Thursday, December 19th. Cantor Fitzgerald raised shares of Cognex to a "strong-buy" rating in a research report on Friday, December 20th. Stephens raised shares of Cognex from an "equal weight" rating to an "overweight" rating and raised their price target for the company from $45.00 to $55.00 in a research report on Wednesday, October 16th. Finally, Needham & Company LLC decreased their price objective on Cognex from $50.00 to $47.00 and set a "buy" rating for the company in a report on Friday, November 1st. One investment analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, five have given a hold rating, six have issued a buy rating and one has issued a strong buy rating to the stock. Based on data from MarketBeat, the company presently has a consensus rating of "Moderate Buy" and an average target price of $47.92.

Cognex Trading Down 2.4 %

Shares of CGNX stock traded down $0.90 during trading hours on Friday, hitting $36.04. 963,552 shares of the company were exchanged, compared to its average volume of 1,260,019. Cognex Co. has a 52-week low of $34.79 and a 52-week high of $53.13. The firm has a fifty day simple moving average of $39.14 and a 200 day simple moving average of $41.49. The stock has a market capitalization of $6.18 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 69.31 and a beta of 1.39.

Cognex Increases Dividend

The company also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Friday, November 29th. Shareholders of record on Thursday, November 14th were paid a $0.08 dividend. The ex-dividend date was Thursday, November 14th. This is a positive change from Cognex's previous quarterly dividend of $0.08. This represents a $0.32 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 0.89%. Cognex's payout ratio is presently 61.54%.

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.