HighTower Advisors LLC Sells 35,569 Shares of Abbott Laboratories $ABT

HighTower Advisors LLC lowered its holdings in shares of Abbott Laboratories (NYSE:ABT) by 1.9% in the 3rd quarter, according to its most recent disclosure with the SEC. The fund owned 1,838,381 shares of the healthcare product maker’s stock after selling 35,569 shares during the period. HighTower Advisors LLC owned about 0.11% of Abbott Laboratories worth $246,235,000 as of its most recent SEC filing.

Other institutional investors and hedge funds have also bought and sold shares of the company. Vanguard Group Inc. grew its position in shares of Abbott Laboratories by 1.8% in the 2nd quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 172,800,851 shares of the healthcare product maker’s stock valued at $23,502,644,000 after buying an additional 2,977,715 shares during the last quarter. State Street Corp boosted its holdings in Abbott Laboratories by 0.9% in the second quarter. State Street Corp now owns 78,354,270 shares of the healthcare product maker’s stock valued at $10,656,964,000 after acquiring an additional 689,517 shares during the last quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC boosted its holdings in Abbott Laboratories by 3.8% in the second quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC now owns 38,293,067 shares of the healthcare product maker’s stock valued at $5,184,589,000 after acquiring an additional 1,390,554 shares during the last quarter. Norges Bank bought a new position in Abbott Laboratories during the 2nd quarter worth approximately $3,026,180,000. Finally, Massachusetts Financial Services Co. MA lifted its position in shares of Abbott Laboratories by 5.8% in the 3rd quarter. Massachusetts Financial Services Co. MA now owns 15,096,907 shares of the healthcare product maker’s stock worth $2,022,080,000 after purchasing an additional 821,325 shares during the period. 75.18% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

Wall Street Analyst Weigh In

A number of brokerages recently weighed in on ABT. Citigroup lowered their target price on shares of Abbott Laboratories from $155.00 to $140.00 and set a “buy” rating for the company in a research note on Friday, January 23rd. Leerink Partners cut their target price on Abbott Laboratories from $136.00 to $119.00 and set a “market perform” rating on the stock in a research report on Friday, January 30th. Piper Sandler lowered their target price on Abbott Laboratories from $150.00 to $135.00 and set an “overweight” rating for the company in a report on Friday, January 23rd. Freedom Capital upgraded Abbott Laboratories from a “hold” rating to a “strong-buy” rating in a report on Thursday, January 29th. Finally, Royal Bank Of Canada lowered their price objective on shares of Abbott Laboratories from $147.00 to $135.00 and set an “outperform” rating for the company in a research note on Friday, January 23rd. Two research analysts have rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, sixteen have issued a Buy rating and four have assigned a Hold rating to the company’s stock. Based on data from MarketBeat, the stock currently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $137.05.

Abbott Laboratories Trading Up 1.0%

Shares of Abbott Laboratories stock opened at $112.63 on Friday. Abbott Laboratories has a 12-month low of $105.27 and a 12-month high of $141.23. The company has a current ratio of 1.70, a quick ratio of 1.24 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.23. The company has a market capitalization of $195.84 billion, a P/E ratio of 30.28, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 1.79 and a beta of 0.75. The stock has a fifty day simple moving average of $119.48 and a 200 day simple moving average of $126.40.

Abbott Laboratories (NYSE:ABT) last announced its earnings results on Thursday, January 22nd. The healthcare product maker reported $1.50 EPS for the quarter, meeting the consensus estimate of $1.50. Abbott Laboratories had a net margin of 14.72% and a return on equity of 17.94%. The company had revenue of $11.46 billion during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $11.80 billion. During the same quarter in the prior year, the company posted $1.34 earnings per share. The firm’s revenue for the quarter was up 4.4% on a year-over-year basis. Abbott Laboratories has set its Q1 2026 guidance at 1.120-1.180 EPS and its FY 2026 guidance at 5.550-5.800 EPS. On average, sell-side analysts anticipate that Abbott Laboratories will post 5.14 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Abbott Laboratories Increases Dividend

The firm also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Friday, February 13th. Stockholders of record on Thursday, January 15th were issued a $0.63 dividend. This is a boost from Abbott Laboratories’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.59. This represents a $2.52 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 2.2%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Thursday, January 15th. Abbott Laboratories’s dividend payout ratio is currently 67.74%.

Insider Buying and Selling

In other Abbott Laboratories news, Director Daniel J. Starks acquired 10,000 shares of Abbott Laboratories stock in a transaction on Wednesday, February 4th. The stock was purchased at an average price of $108.73 per share, for a total transaction of $1,087,300.00. Following the purchase, the director directly owned 6,738,817 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $732,711,572.41. This trade represents a 0.15% increase in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which is accessible through the SEC website. Company insiders own 0.46% of the company’s stock.

About Abbott Laboratories

Abbott Laboratories is a global healthcare company headquartered in Abbott Park, Illinois, that develops, manufactures and markets a broad portfolio of medical products and services. Founded in 1888, Abbott operates through multiple business areas that focus on diagnostics, medical devices, nutritionals and established pharmaceuticals. The company supplies hospitals, clinics, laboratories, retailers and direct-to-consumer channels with products intended to diagnose, treat and manage a wide range of health conditions.

In diagnostics, Abbott provides laboratory and point-of-care testing platforms and assays used to detect infectious diseases, chronic conditions and biomarkers; its Alinity family of instruments and rapid-test solutions are examples of this capability.