New York State Common Retirement Fund Decreases Stake in Danaher Co. (NYSE:DHR)

New York State Common Retirement Fund lessened its position in shares of Danaher Co. (NYSE:DHR) by 8.7% in the 3rd quarter, HoldingsChannel.com reports. The institutional investor owned 977,771 shares of the conglomerate’s stock after selling 92,989 shares during the quarter. New York State Common Retirement Fund’s holdings in Danaher were worth $271,840,000 at the end of the most recent reporting period.

A number of other large investors have also added to or reduced their stakes in the company. CarsonAllaria Wealth Management Ltd. purchased a new stake in Danaher during the second quarter valued at $25,000. nVerses Capital LLC purchased a new stake in shares of Danaher during the 2nd quarter valued at about $25,000. MFA Wealth Advisors LLC bought a new position in shares of Danaher in the 2nd quarter valued at about $51,000. Financial Connections Group Inc. purchased a new position in Danaher in the second quarter worth about $51,000. Finally, Western Pacific Wealth Management LP purchased a new stake in Danaher during the first quarter valued at approximately $55,000. Institutional investors own 79.05% of the company’s stock.

Analyst Ratings Changes

A number of equities analysts have recently commented on the company. Wolfe Research upgraded Danaher from a “peer perform” rating to an “outperform” rating and set a $285.00 target price for the company in a report on Thursday. Evercore ISI increased their target price on shares of Danaher from $275.00 to $278.00 and gave the company an “outperform” rating in a research note on Tuesday, October 1st. Bank of America lifted their price target on shares of Danaher from $270.00 to $275.00 and gave the stock a “neutral” rating in a research note on Wednesday, July 24th. Royal Bank of Canada reduced their price objective on shares of Danaher from $333.00 to $311.00 and set an “outperform” rating on the stock in a research report on Wednesday, October 23rd. Finally, KeyCorp upped their target price on Danaher from $290.00 to $310.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a research note on Wednesday, October 23rd. Six analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and fourteen have assigned a buy rating to the company’s stock. According to data from MarketBeat, Danaher currently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus price target of $287.16.

Danaher Stock Up 1.6 %

Shares of NYSE DHR traded up $4.03 during midday trading on Friday, reaching $249.69. 414,558 shares of the company’s stock traded hands, compared to its average volume of 2,742,028. The company has a market cap of $180.35 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 46.88, a P/E/G ratio of 4.45 and a beta of 0.83. Danaher Co. has a one year low of $190.95 and a one year high of $281.70. The company has a quick ratio of 1.01, a current ratio of 1.37 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.32. The stock’s 50 day simple moving average is $267.38 and its 200-day simple moving average is $260.32.

Danaher (NYSE:DHR) last released its quarterly earnings results on Tuesday, October 22nd. The conglomerate reported $1.71 EPS for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $1.57 by $0.14. Danaher had a return on equity of 10.62% and a net margin of 16.39%. The firm had revenue of $5.80 billion during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $5.59 billion. During the same period in the previous year, the company posted $2.02 EPS. The business’s revenue for the quarter was up 3.1% compared to the same quarter last year. On average, analysts predict that Danaher Co. will post 7.51 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Danaher Announces Dividend

The company also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Friday, October 25th. Investors of record on Friday, September 27th were given a dividend of $0.27 per share. The ex-dividend date was Friday, September 27th. This represents a $1.08 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 0.43%. Danaher’s payout ratio is 20.61%.

Insider Buying and Selling at Danaher

In other news, SVP Georgeann Couchara sold 952 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction on Monday, August 26th. The stock was sold at an average price of $268.37, for a total transaction of $255,488.24. Following the transaction, the senior vice president now directly owns 4,212 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $1,130,374.44. This represents a 0.00 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which is accessible through this hyperlink. 11.10% of the stock is owned by insiders.

Danaher Profile

Danaher Corporation designs, manufactures, and markets professional, medical, industrial, and commercial products and services worldwide. The Biotechnology segments offers bioprocess technologies, consumables, and services that advance, accelerate, and integrate the development and manufacture of therapeutics; cell line and cell culture media development services; cell culture media, process liquids and buffers for manufacturing, chromatography resins, filtration technologies, aseptic fill finish; single-use hardware and consumables and services, such as the design and installation of full manufacturing suites; lab filtration, separation, and purification; lab-scale protein purification and analytical tools; reagents, membranes, and services; and healthcare filtration solutions.