Danaher (NYSE:DHR) Upgraded at StockNews.com

StockNews.com upgraded shares of Danaher (NYSE:DHR) from a hold rating to a buy rating in a research report sent to investors on Wednesday morning.

Several other equities research analysts have also commented on DHR. Raymond James cut their price target on shares of Danaher from $310.00 to $300.00 and set an “outperform” rating for the company in a report on Wednesday, October 23rd. TD Cowen boosted their price target on shares of Danaher from $310.00 to $315.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a report on Wednesday, October 23rd. Royal Bank of Canada cut their price target on shares of Danaher from $333.00 to $311.00 and set an “outperform” rating for the company in a report on Wednesday, October 23rd. Evercore ISI boosted their price target on shares of Danaher from $275.00 to $278.00 and gave the stock an “outperform” rating in a report on Tuesday, October 1st. Finally, Stephens reaffirmed an “overweight” rating and set a $315.00 target price on shares of Danaher in a report on Wednesday, October 23rd. Five investment analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and fifteen have issued a buy rating to the company’s stock. According to data from MarketBeat.com, Danaher presently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average price target of $287.16.

Danaher Stock Performance

DHR opened at $247.81 on Wednesday. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.32, a current ratio of 1.37 and a quick ratio of 1.01. The firm has a fifty day moving average price of $265.79 and a 200 day moving average price of $260.75. Danaher has a 1 year low of $192.35 and a 1 year high of $281.70. The stock has a market cap of $178.99 billion, a P/E ratio of 47.29, a P/E/G ratio of 4.55 and a beta of 0.85.

Danaher (NYSE:DHR) last posted its earnings results on Tuesday, October 22nd. The conglomerate reported $1.71 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $1.57 by $0.14. Danaher had a net margin of 16.39% and a return on equity of 10.62%. The firm had revenue of $5.80 billion during the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $5.59 billion. During the same period in the previous year, the business posted $2.02 EPS. The business’s revenue was up 3.1% compared to the same quarter last year. Equities research analysts anticipate that Danaher will post 7.51 earnings per share for the current year.

Danaher Dividend Announcement

The company also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Friday, October 25th. Stockholders 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 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 0.44%. Danaher’s payout ratio is 20.61%.

Insider Buying and Selling at Danaher

In other Danaher news, SVP Georgeann Couchara sold 952 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction dated Monday, August 26th. The shares were sold at an average price of $268.37, for a total value of $255,488.24. Following the transaction, the senior vice president now owns 4,212 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $1,130,374.44. This represents a 0.00 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which is available through this link. 10.90% of the stock is currently owned by corporate insiders.

Institutional Inflows and Outflows

A number of large investors have recently bought and sold shares of DHR. Vanguard Group Inc. lifted its position in shares of Danaher by 7.4% during the first quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 60,107,030 shares of the conglomerate’s stock worth $15,009,928,000 after purchasing an additional 4,163,657 shares in the last quarter. Legal & General Group Plc lifted its position in shares of Danaher by 2.4% during the second quarter. Legal & General Group Plc now owns 5,964,031 shares of the conglomerate’s stock worth $1,490,112,000 after purchasing an additional 139,989 shares in the last quarter. Capital Research Global Investors lifted its position in shares of Danaher by 1.0% during the first quarter. Capital Research Global Investors now owns 5,125,470 shares of the conglomerate’s stock worth $1,279,932,000 after purchasing an additional 52,679 shares in the last quarter. Dimensional Fund Advisors LP lifted its position in shares of Danaher by 2.6% during the second quarter. Dimensional Fund Advisors LP now owns 3,398,649 shares of the conglomerate’s stock worth $849,195,000 after purchasing an additional 85,081 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Massachusetts Financial Services Co. MA increased its stake in shares of Danaher by 22.7% during the second quarter. Massachusetts Financial Services Co. MA now owns 3,047,728 shares of the conglomerate’s stock worth $761,475,000 after buying an additional 563,546 shares during the period. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 79.05% of the company’s stock.

Danaher Company 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.