Principal Financial Group Inc. Reduces Stock Position in DENTSPLY SIRONA Inc. (NASDAQ:XRAY)

Principal Financial Group Inc. reduced its holdings in shares of DENTSPLY SIRONA Inc. (NASDAQ:XRAY) by 2.6% in the 3rd quarter, HoldingsChannel.com reports. The institutional investor owned 1,743,116 shares of the medical instruments supplier’s stock after selling 47,439 shares during the period. Principal Financial Group Inc.’s holdings in DENTSPLY SIRONA were worth $47,159,000 as of its most recent SEC filing.

Other hedge funds have also made changes to their positions in the company. First Eagle Investment Management LLC grew its holdings in DENTSPLY SIRONA by 33.6% during the 2nd quarter. First Eagle Investment Management LLC now owns 13,069,900 shares of the medical instruments supplier’s stock worth $325,571,000 after acquiring an additional 3,283,965 shares in the last quarter. Nuance Investments LLC grew its stake in DENTSPLY SIRONA by 3.8% in the second quarter. Nuance Investments LLC now owns 10,879,916 shares of the medical instruments supplier’s stock worth $271,019,000 after purchasing an additional 402,329 shares in the last quarter. FMR LLC grew its stake in DENTSPLY SIRONA by 5.1% in the third quarter. FMR LLC now owns 9,056,774 shares of the medical instruments supplier’s stock worth $245,076,000 after purchasing an additional 436,031 shares in the last quarter. Cooke & Bieler LP increased its holdings in DENTSPLY SIRONA by 16.2% in the second quarter. Cooke & Bieler LP now owns 7,506,845 shares of the medical instruments supplier’s stock valued at $186,996,000 after buying an additional 1,046,105 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Dimensional Fund Advisors LP raised its stake in DENTSPLY SIRONA by 42.0% during the second quarter. Dimensional Fund Advisors LP now owns 4,420,445 shares of the medical instruments supplier’s stock valued at $110,118,000 after buying an additional 1,308,411 shares in the last quarter. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 95.70% of the company’s stock.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

A number of brokerages have recently weighed in on XRAY. Needham & Company LLC lowered their price target on DENTSPLY SIRONA from $34.00 to $29.00 and set a “buy” rating for the company in a report on Friday, October 25th. Robert W. Baird lowered their target price on shares of DENTSPLY SIRONA from $31.00 to $24.00 and set a “neutral” rating for the company in a research note on Friday, November 8th. Evercore ISI decreased their price target on shares of DENTSPLY SIRONA from $29.00 to $27.00 and set an “outperform” rating for the company in a report on Tuesday, October 8th. StockNews.com lowered shares of DENTSPLY SIRONA from a “buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a research note on Tuesday, November 19th. Finally, Morgan Stanley decreased their target price on DENTSPLY SIRONA from $30.00 to $23.00 and set an “overweight” rating for the company in a research note on Tuesday, December 17th. Eight equities research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and five have issued a buy rating to the company’s stock. According to data from MarketBeat, the stock currently has a consensus rating of “Hold” and an average price target of $27.91.

DENTSPLY SIRONA Stock Up 1.2 %

Shares of DENTSPLY SIRONA stock opened at $18.70 on Monday. DENTSPLY SIRONA Inc. has a 1-year low of $17.21 and a 1-year high of $37.60. The company has a market capitalization of $3.72 billion, a P/E ratio of -9.03, a PEG ratio of 1.93 and a beta of 0.97. The business’s fifty day moving average price is $20.72 and its two-hundred day moving average price is $23.85. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.72, a current ratio of 1.25 and a quick ratio of 0.84.

DENTSPLY SIRONA (NASDAQ:XRAY) last announced its earnings results on Thursday, November 7th. The medical instruments supplier reported $0.50 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $0.48 by $0.02. DENTSPLY SIRONA had a negative net margin of 10.59% and a positive return on equity of 12.62%. The firm had revenue of $951.00 million during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $939.10 million. During the same quarter in the prior year, the firm posted $0.49 EPS. DENTSPLY SIRONA’s revenue was up .4% compared to the same quarter last year. As a group, research analysts forecast that DENTSPLY SIRONA Inc. will post 1.84 EPS for the current year.

DENTSPLY SIRONA Dividend Announcement

The company also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Friday, January 10th. Investors of record on Friday, December 27th will be issued a dividend of $0.16 per share. The ex-dividend date is Friday, December 27th. This represents a $0.64 annualized dividend and a yield of 3.42%. DENTSPLY SIRONA’s payout ratio is -30.92%.

DENTSPLY SIRONA Company Profile

DENTSPLY SIRONA Inc manufactures and sells various dental products and technologies worldwide. It operates in four segments: Connected Technology Solutions, Essential Dental Solutions, Orthodontic and Implant Solutions, and Wellspect Healthcare. The company offers dental equipment comprising imaging equipment, motorized dental handpieces, treatment centers, other instruments, amalgamators, mixing machines, and porcelain furnaces; and dental CAD/CAM technologies to support dental restorations, such as intraoral scanners, 3-D printers, mills, other software and services, and a full-chairside economical restoration of esthetic ceramic dentistry, as well as DS Core, its cloud-based platform.