Voya Financial Advisors Inc. Lowers Position in Danaher Co. (NYSE:DHR)

Voya Financial Advisors Inc. decreased its holdings in shares of Danaher Co. (NYSE:DHR) by 7.0% in the 4th quarter, Holdings Channel reports. The firm owned 2,742 shares of the conglomerate’s stock after selling 205 shares during the period. Voya Financial Advisors Inc.’s holdings in Danaher were worth $630,000 at the end of the most recent reporting period.

Several other institutional investors also recently modified their holdings of the stock. Vanguard Group Inc. increased its holdings in shares of Danaher by 0.5% in the 4th quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 59,750,122 shares of the conglomerate’s stock worth $13,715,641,000 after buying an additional 315,912 shares during the last quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC increased its stake in Danaher by 2.4% in the fourth quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC now owns 13,358,206 shares of the conglomerate’s stock valued at $3,056,996,000 after acquiring an additional 315,446 shares during the last quarter. Norges Bank purchased a new stake in Danaher during the fourth quarter valued at about $2,130,740,000. Bank of New York Mellon Corp lifted its stake in Danaher by 5.4% during the fourth quarter. Bank of New York Mellon Corp now owns 8,589,019 shares of the conglomerate’s stock worth $1,971,609,000 after purchasing an additional 441,012 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Capital World Investors boosted its holdings in shares of Danaher by 32.7% in the 4th quarter. Capital World Investors now owns 6,361,183 shares of the conglomerate’s stock worth $1,460,215,000 after purchasing an additional 1,566,658 shares in the last quarter. 79.05% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors.

Insider Buying and Selling

In other news, SVP Brian W. Ellis sold 5,700 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction on Thursday, January 30th. The shares were sold at an average price of $224.13, for a total transaction of $1,277,541.00. Following the sale, the senior vice president now owns 20,230 shares in the company, valued at approximately $4,534,149.90. The trade was a 21.98 % decrease in their position. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which is accessible through the SEC website. 11.10% of the stock is owned by insiders.

Analyst Ratings Changes

DHR has been the subject of a number of recent research reports. Stifel Nicolaus upgraded Danaher from a “hold” rating to a “buy” rating and set a $260.00 target price for the company in a research report on Friday, March 14th. UBS Group cut their price objective on shares of Danaher from $275.00 to $240.00 and set a “buy” rating for the company in a research note on Wednesday. Wells Fargo & Company decreased their target price on shares of Danaher from $280.00 to $240.00 and set an “equal weight” rating on the stock in a research report on Thursday, January 30th. JPMorgan Chase & Co. cut their price target on shares of Danaher from $280.00 to $260.00 and set an “overweight” rating for the company in a research report on Tuesday. Finally, Citigroup reiterated a “buy” rating on shares of Danaher in a report on Monday, April 7th. Five equities research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and sixteen have given a buy rating to the stock. According to data from MarketBeat, Danaher currently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average price target of $264.40.

Danaher Stock Up 0.4 %

Shares of Danaher stock opened at $197.37 on Friday. The company has a current ratio of 1.40, a quick ratio of 1.05 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.31. Danaher Co. has a 12-month low of $171.00 and a 12-month high of $281.70. The company has a market cap of $141.06 billion, a P/E ratio of 37.38, a PEG ratio of 2.66 and a beta of 0.86. The company’s fifty day simple moving average is $200.87 and its two-hundred day simple moving average is $224.58.

Danaher (NYSE:DHR) last released its quarterly earnings results on Tuesday, April 22nd. The conglomerate reported $1.88 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, topping analysts’ consensus estimates of $1.62 by $0.26. The company had revenue of $5.74 billion during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $5.58 billion. Danaher had a net margin of 16.33% and a return on equity of 10.82%. Research analysts anticipate that Danaher Co. will post 7.63 EPS for the current year.

Danaher Increases Dividend

The company also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Friday, April 25th. Investors of record on Friday, March 28th were given a dividend of $0.32 per share. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Friday, March 28th. This is a positive change from Danaher’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.27. This represents a $1.28 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 0.65%. Danaher’s payout ratio is currently 24.85%.

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.