Craig Hallum Lowers Gentex Corporation (GNTX) to Hold

Craig Hallum lowered shares of Gentex Corporation (NASDAQ:GNTX) from a buy rating to a hold rating in a research note issued to investors on Monday, July 24th, MarketBeat.com reports. The brokerage currently has $18.00 price target on the auto parts company’s stock.

Other analysts have also issued research reports about the company. Zacks Investment Research raised Gentex Corporation from a hold rating to a buy rating and set a $23.00 target price on the stock in a research report on Wednesday, April 26th. Wellington Shields lowered Gentex Corporation from a gradually accumulate rating to a hold rating in a research report on Thursday, May 4th. Two equities research analysts have rated the stock with a sell rating, three have given a hold rating and four have assigned a buy rating to the company’s stock. Gentex Corporation currently has a consensus rating of Hold and a consensus target price of $21.75.

Shares of Gentex Corporation (NASDAQ:GNTX) opened at 17.25 on Monday. The company has a 50-day moving average price of $18.31 and a 200-day moving average price of $19.88. The stock has a market capitalization of $4.95 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 13.69 and a beta of 1.18. Gentex Corporation has a 52-week low of $16.06 and a 52-week high of $22.12.

Gentex Corporation (NASDAQ:GNTX) last released its quarterly earnings results on Friday, July 21st. The auto parts company reported $0.31 EPS for the quarter, missing the Thomson Reuters’ consensus estimate of $0.32 by $0.01. The firm had revenue of $443.10 million for the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $446.36 million. Gentex Corporation had a net margin of 21.01% and a return on equity of 18.95%. The firm’s quarterly revenue was up 4.6% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same period in the previous year, the firm posted $0.30 EPS. On average, equities analysts anticipate that Gentex Corporation will post $1.28 earnings per share for the current year.

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The business also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Wednesday, July 19th. Stockholders of record on Thursday, July 6th were given a dividend of $0.10 per share. The ex-dividend date was Monday, July 3rd. This represents a $0.40 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 2.32%. This is a positive change from Gentex Corporation’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.09. Gentex Corporation’s dividend payout ratio is currently 31.50%.

In related news, Director John A. Mulder sold 10,000 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction on Thursday, June 1st. The shares were sold at an average price of $19.22, for a total transaction of $192,200.00. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available at this hyperlink. Insiders own 2.50% of the company’s stock.

Institutional investors have recently modified their holdings of the company. Russell Investments Group Ltd. bought a new position in Gentex Corporation during the fourth quarter valued at about $1,515,000. Quadrature Capital Ltd bought a new position in Gentex Corporation during the fourth quarter valued at about $754,000. Teachers Advisors LLC increased its position in Gentex Corporation by 17.8% in the fourth quarter. Teachers Advisors LLC now owns 392,756 shares of the auto parts company’s stock valued at $7,733,000 after buying an additional 59,358 shares in the last quarter. Highbridge Capital Management LLC bought a new position in Gentex Corporation during the fourth quarter valued at about $300,000. Finally, Raymond James Trust N.A. bought a new position in Gentex Corporation during the first quarter valued at about $330,000. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 82.72% of the company’s stock.

About Gentex Corporation

Gentex Corporation designs and manufactures automatic-dimming rearview mirrors and electronics for the automotive industry, dimmable aircraft windows for the aviation industry, and commercial smoke alarms and signaling devices for the fire protection industry. The Company’s business segment involves designing, developing, manufacturing and marketing interior and exterior automatic-dimming automotive rearview mirrors that utilize electrochromic technology to dim in proportion to the amount of headlight glare from trailing vehicle headlamps.