Legal & General Group Plc Increases Stock Holdings in Cognex Corporation $CGNX

Legal & General Group Plc increased its position in shares of Cognex Corporation (NASDAQ:CGNX) by 19.9% in the 2nd quarter, Holdings Channel.com reports. The firm owned 1,165,517 shares of the scientific and technical instruments company’s stock after acquiring an additional 193,310 shares during the quarter. Legal & General Group Plc’s holdings in Cognex were worth $36,970,000 at the end of the most recent quarter.

Other institutional investors also recently bought and sold shares of the company. Nordea Investment Management AB grew its stake in shares of Cognex by 148.5% in the 2nd quarter. Nordea Investment Management AB now owns 7,075,772 shares of the scientific and technical instruments company’s stock valued at $223,594,000 after buying an additional 4,228,729 shares during the period. T. Rowe Price Investment Management Inc. lifted its holdings in Cognex by 32.0% in the first quarter. T. Rowe Price Investment Management Inc. now owns 6,082,319 shares of the scientific and technical instruments company’s stock valued at $181,436,000 after acquiring an additional 1,474,832 shares during the last quarter. Price T Rowe Associates Inc. MD grew its position in Cognex by 34.3% in the first quarter. Price T Rowe Associates Inc. MD now owns 2,539,557 shares of the scientific and technical instruments company’s stock worth $75,756,000 after acquiring an additional 647,955 shares during the period. Charles Schwab Investment Management Inc. increased its stake in Cognex by 5.6% during the first quarter. Charles Schwab Investment Management Inc. now owns 1,507,022 shares of the scientific and technical instruments company’s stock worth $44,954,000 after acquiring an additional 79,266 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Mawer Investment Management Ltd. acquired a new stake in Cognex during the second quarter worth $45,723,000. 88.12% of the stock is owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

CGNX has been the topic of several recent analyst reports. Weiss Ratings reaffirmed a “hold (c)” rating on shares of Cognex in a research note on Tuesday. The Goldman Sachs Group upped their target price on shares of Cognex from $36.00 to $40.00 and gave the company a “sell” rating in a research report on Tuesday, September 16th. DA Davidson set a $38.00 price target on shares of Cognex and gave the company a “neutral” rating in a research report on Monday, November 3rd. Robert W. Baird set a $45.00 price target on shares of Cognex in a research note on Friday, October 31st. Finally, Barclays reaffirmed an “overweight” rating and set a $56.00 price objective (up previously from $55.00) on shares of Cognex in a research report on Friday, October 31st. One investment analyst has rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, eight have given a Buy rating, eight have assigned a Hold rating and one has assigned a Sell rating to the company. Based on data from MarketBeat, the stock has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus target price of $46.20.

Insider Buying and Selling at Cognex

In other Cognex news, Director Robert Willett sold 6,704 shares of the stock in a transaction dated Tuesday, October 21st. The stock was sold at an average price of $49.51, for a total value of $331,915.04. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which is available at this link. Also, EVP Sheila Marie Dipalma sold 2,000 shares of Cognex stock in a transaction dated Monday, September 8th. The shares were sold at an average price of $45.03, for a total value of $90,060.00. Following the completion of the transaction, the executive vice president owned 6,582 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $296,387.46. The trade was a 23.30% decrease in their position. The SEC filing for this sale provides additional information. Over the last quarter, insiders sold 10,706 shares of company stock worth $512,065. Insiders own 1.60% of the company’s stock.

Cognex Stock Performance

Shares of CGNX opened at $38.21 on Thursday. The company’s 50-day simple moving average is $43.03 and its 200-day simple moving average is $38.50. Cognex Corporation has a 1 year low of $22.67 and a 1 year high of $49.76. The stock has a market capitalization of $6.40 billion, a PE ratio of 59.70 and a beta of 1.52.

Cognex (NASDAQ:CGNX) last announced its quarterly earnings data on Wednesday, October 29th. The scientific and technical instruments company reported $0.33 earnings per share for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $0.27 by $0.06. The firm had revenue of $264.00 million during the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $261.86 million. Cognex had a net margin of 11.33% and a return on equity of 8.26%. The business’s quarterly revenue was up 18.0% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same quarter in the previous year, the business posted $0.20 earnings per share. Cognex has set its Q4 2025 guidance at 0.190-0.24 EPS. On average, sell-side analysts predict that Cognex Corporation will post 0.61 earnings per share for the current year.

Cognex Increases Dividend

The business also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Friday, November 28th. Stockholders of record on Thursday, November 13th will be given a dividend of $0.085 per share. This is an increase from Cognex’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.08. This represents a $0.34 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 0.9%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Thursday, November 13th. Cognex’s dividend payout ratio is currently 53.13%.

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.