CVS Health Co. Declares Quarterly Dividend of $0.61 (NYSE:CVS)

CVS Health Co. (NYSE:CVS – Get Rating) announced a quarterly dividend on Thursday, March 16th, RTT News reports. Investors of record on Friday, April 21st will be given a dividend of 0.605 per share by the pharmacy operator on Monday, May 1st. This represents a $2.42 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 3.25%. The ex-dividend date is Thursday, April 20th.

CVS Health has increased its dividend by an average of 4.1% annually over the last three years and has raised its dividend every year for the last 1 years. CVS Health has a dividend payout ratio of 26.4% indicating that its dividend is sufficiently covered by earnings. Equities analysts expect CVS Health to earn $9.11 per share next year, which means the company should continue to be able to cover its $2.42 annual dividend with an expected future payout ratio of 26.6%.

CVS Health Trading Down 1.9 %

CVS opened at $74.37 on Friday. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.71, a current ratio of 0.94 and a quick ratio of 0.67. The company has a market cap of $95.50 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 23.84, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 1.17 and a beta of 0.65. The firm has a 50 day simple moving average of $85.40 and a 200 day simple moving average of $93.04. CVS Health has a fifty-two week low of $73.91 and a fifty-two week high of $109.69.

CVS Health (NYSE:CVS – Get Rating) last issued its earnings results on Wednesday, February 8th. The pharmacy operator reported $1.99 EPS for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $1.92 by $0.07. CVS Health had a net margin of 1.29% and a return on equity of 15.75%. The firm had revenue of $83.85 billion during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $76.37 billion. During the same quarter in the prior year, the firm earned $1.98 earnings per share. The business’s quarterly revenue was up 9.5% on a year-over-year basis. On average, sell-side analysts anticipate that CVS Health will post 8.84 earnings per share for the current year.

Hedge Funds Weigh In On CVS Health

A number of hedge funds have recently bought and sold shares of CVS. Moneta Group Investment Advisors LLC increased its position in CVS Health by 103,371.0% during the fourth quarter. Moneta Group Investment Advisors LLC now owns 15,547,559 shares of the pharmacy operator’s stock worth $1,448,877,000 after acquiring an additional 15,532,533 shares during the period. Norges Bank bought a new position in CVS Health during the fourth quarter worth about $1,425,416,000. Morgan Stanley increased its position in CVS Health by 10.9% during the fourth quarter. Morgan Stanley now owns 33,576,388 shares of the pharmacy operator’s stock worth $3,128,984,000 after acquiring an additional 3,311,928 shares during the period. Capital Research Global Investors bought a new position in CVS Health in the 1st quarter valued at about $262,167,000. Finally, CI Private Wealth LLC bought a new position in CVS Health in the 4th quarter valued at about $80,401,000. 77.29% of the stock is owned by institutional investors.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

Several brokerages have commented on CVS. Barclays lowered their target price on shares of CVS Health from $118.00 to $110.00 and set an “overweight” rating for the company in a research note on Thursday, February 9th. Morgan Stanley increased their target price on shares of CVS Health from $119.00 to $120.00 and gave the stock an “overweight” rating in a report on Friday, January 13th. Wells Fargo & Company reduced their target price on shares of CVS Health from $106.00 to $101.00 and set an “equal weight” rating for the company in a report on Tuesday, January 3rd. Royal Bank of Canada restated an “outperform” rating and set a $115.00 target price on shares of CVS Health in a report on Thursday, February 9th. Finally, StockNews.com initiated coverage on shares of CVS Health in a report on Thursday. They set a “buy” rating for the company. Three analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and fourteen have assigned a buy rating to the stock. Based on data from MarketBeat, the company has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus target price of $119.65.

CVS Health Company Profile

(Get Rating)

CVS Health Corp. is a health solutions company, which engages in the provision of healthcare services. It operates through the following segments: Pharmacy Services, Retail or Long-Term Care, Health Care Benefits, and Corporate and Other. The Pharmacy Services segment focuses on the pharmacy benefit management solutions.