Oak Thistle LLC Purchases Shares of 12,519 Cognex Co. (NASDAQ:CGNX)

Oak Thistle LLC acquired a new position in shares of Cognex Co. (NASDAQ:CGNX) during the fourth quarter, Holdings Channel reports. The institutional investor acquired 12,519 shares of the scientific and technical instruments company’s stock, valued at approximately $449,000.

Other hedge funds have also modified their holdings of the company. FNY Investment Advisers LLC increased its holdings in Cognex by 1,818.9% during the 4th quarter. FNY Investment Advisers LLC now owns 2,840 shares of the scientific and technical instruments company’s stock worth $101,000 after purchasing an additional 2,692 shares during the period. Clean Yield Group grew its position in shares of Cognex by 1,686.7% during the fourth quarter. Clean Yield Group now owns 1,072 shares of the scientific and technical instruments company’s stock worth $38,000 after buying an additional 1,012 shares in the last quarter. JPMorgan Chase & Co. increased its stake in shares of Cognex by 5.2% during the third quarter. JPMorgan Chase & Co. now owns 1,784,239 shares of the scientific and technical instruments company’s stock worth $72,262,000 after buying an additional 87,790 shares during the period. Tidal Investments LLC raised its holdings in Cognex by 10.0% in the third quarter. Tidal Investments LLC now owns 33,657 shares of the scientific and technical instruments company’s stock valued at $1,363,000 after acquiring an additional 3,068 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Wilmington Savings Fund Society FSB purchased a new position in Cognex in the third quarter worth approximately $40,000. 88.12% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

Cognex Stock Performance

Shares of Cognex stock opened at $39.36 on Friday. The company has a market capitalization of $6.75 billion, a P/E ratio of 75.69 and a beta of 1.40. Cognex Co. has a 1 year low of $34.79 and a 1 year high of $53.13. The company’s fifty day moving average is $38.28 and its two-hundred day moving average is $40.59.

Cognex Increases Dividend

The business also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Friday, November 29th. Shareholders of record on Thursday, November 14th were paid a dividend of $0.08 per share. The ex-dividend date was Thursday, November 14th. This is an increase from Cognex’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.08. This represents a $0.32 annualized dividend and a yield of 0.81%. Cognex’s dividend payout ratio is currently 61.54%.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

A number of brokerages have recently weighed in on CGNX. Needham & Company LLC reduced their price objective 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. Citigroup cut their price target on Cognex from $44.00 to $42.00 and set a “neutral” rating on the stock in a research note on Monday. Stephens reaffirmed an “overweight” rating and set a $55.00 price objective on shares of Cognex in a research report on Thursday, January 2nd. Truist Financial boosted their target price on Cognex from $42.00 to $43.00 and gave the stock a “hold” rating in a research note on Thursday. Finally, Cantor Fitzgerald upgraded shares of Cognex to a “strong-buy” rating in a research note on Friday, December 20th. One analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, five have given a hold rating, six have given a buy rating and one has assigned a strong buy rating to the stock. According to data from MarketBeat.com, Cognex presently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average price target of $47.92.

Insiders Place Their Bets

In other 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 value of $110,758.50. The transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available at the SEC website. Also, Director Anthony Sun sold 26,000 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction dated Friday, November 22nd. The stock was sold at an average price of $40.03, for a total transaction of $1,040,780.00. Following the transaction, the director now owns 26,608 shares in the company, valued at approximately $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.

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.