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Here's Why Investors Should Bet on IDEX (IEX) Stock for Now

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IDEX Corporation (IEX - Free Report) is well poised for growth, courtesy of strength across its businesses, solid product portfolio, acquired assets and a sound capital-deployment strategy.

Let’s delve deeper to unearth the factors that might make investing in this currently Zacks Rank #2 (Buy) player a smart choice now.

Business Strength: IDEX benefits from its presence in diverse end markets, which allows it to offset risks associated with a single market. In the quarters ahead, strength in its end markets like water and agricultural, and an improvement in the energy markets will likely benefit the Fluid & Metering Technologies segment. Robust business in the semiconductor, food and pharma, analytical instrumentation and life sciences markets will be beneficial to the Health & Science Technologies segment. Growth in orders and backlog along with IEX’s effective pricing actions is expected to drive its performance in the quarters ahead. For 2022, IEX anticipates generating organic sales growth of approximately 10% from the year-ago reported figure.

Benefits From Acquisitions:  IDEX’s acquisition of KZValve (May 2022) has  boosted fluid management solutions in its Banjo Corporation business. The buyout of Nexsight, LLC and its WinCan, Envirosight, MyTana and Pipeline Renewal Technologies businesses (March 2022) has strengthened its position in the intelligent water technologies market for a while now. Also, its buyout of Airtech Group, US Valve Corporation and other entities strengthened its Health & Science Technology segment. IEX anticipates buyout synergies to boost sales % for the third quarter and 4% for 2022.

Shareholder-Friendly Activities: IDEX’s measures to reward its shareholders through dividend payments and share buybacks are encouraging. During the first six months of 2022, IEX paid out dividends worth $86.9 million and repurchased shares worth $110.4 million. It also announced a hike of 11% in its quarterly dividend rate during May 2022.

Northbound Estimate Revision: In the past 60 days, the Zacks Consensus Estimate for 2022 earnings has been revised 2.7% upward.

Zacks Rank & Other Stocks to Consider

Some other top-ranked companies from the industrial products sector are discussed below:

Greif, Inc. (GEF - Free Report) presently sports a Zacks Rank #1 (Strong Buy). GEF delivered a trailing four-quarter earnings surprise of 22.9%, on average. You can see the complete list of today’s Zacks #1 Rank stocks.

GEF’s earnings estimates have increased 0.4% for fiscal 2022 (ending October 2022) in the past 60 days. Its shares have risen 20.2% in the past six months.

Applied Industrial Technologies, Inc. (AIT - Free Report) presently sports a Zacks Rank of 1. AIT delivered a trailing four-quarter earnings surprise of 22.8%, on average.

AIT’s earnings estimates have increased 5.8% for fiscal 2023 (ending June 2023) in the past 60 days. Its shares have rallied 18.4% in the past six months.

Valmont Industries, Inc. (VMI - Free Report) presently has a Zacks Rank of 2. VMI’s earnings surprise in the last four quarters was 13.7%, on average.

In the past 60 days, Valmont’s earnings estimates have increased 3.8% for 2022. The stock has rallied 32.6% in the past six months.

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