Novartis AG (NYSE:NVS) Given Consensus Rating of “Hold” by Brokerages

Shares of Novartis AG (NYSE:NVS) have earned a consensus recommendation of “Hold” from the sixteen research firms that are presently covering the stock, MarketBeat reports. Two equities research analysts have rated the stock with a sell rating, seven have assigned a hold rating and seven have given a buy rating to the company. The average 12-month price objective among brokerages that have covered the stock in the last year is $141.20.

Several research analysts have recently weighed in on NVS shares. Weiss Ratings cut shares of Novartis from a “buy (a-)” rating to a “buy (b)” rating in a report on Wednesday, April 29th. Sanford C. Bernstein raised shares of Novartis to a “hold” rating in a report on Thursday, March 19th. Argus raised shares of Novartis from a “hold” rating to a “buy” rating and set a $180.00 price target on the stock in a report on Wednesday, March 11th. Finally, Morgan Stanley upped their price target on shares of Novartis from $143.00 to $170.00 and gave the stock an “overweight” rating in a report on Thursday, March 26th.

Institutional Inflows and Outflows

Several institutional investors have recently made changes to their positions in NVS. Auto Owners Insurance Co increased its holdings in shares of Novartis by 13,687.0% in the fourth quarter. Auto Owners Insurance Co now owns 4,628,296 shares of the company’s stock worth $638,103,000 after purchasing an additional 4,594,726 shares during the period. WCM Investment Management LLC purchased a new stake in Novartis during the first quarter valued at about $220,004,000. Morgan Stanley lifted its stake in Novartis by 14.9% during the fourth quarter. Morgan Stanley now owns 8,876,906 shares of the company’s stock worth $1,223,860,000 after purchasing an additional 1,148,033 shares during the last quarter. GQG Partners LLC lifted its stake in Novartis by 39.6% during the fourth quarter. GQG Partners LLC now owns 3,158,122 shares of the company’s stock worth $435,414,000 after purchasing an additional 895,255 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Arrowstreet Capital Limited Partnership bought a new stake in Novartis during the fourth quarter worth about $108,638,000. Institutional investors own 13.12% of the company’s stock.

Novartis Trading Down 0.1%

NYSE:NVS opened at $155.31 on Monday. The company has a market cap of $296.35 billion, a P/E ratio of 22.25, a P/E/G ratio of 2.74 and a beta of 0.46. Novartis has a 1 year low of $112.34 and a 1 year high of $170.46. The stock’s fifty day moving average price is $149.04 and its two-hundred day moving average price is $149.64. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.96, a current ratio of 0.85 and a quick ratio of 0.65.

Novartis (NYSE:NVS) last released its quarterly earnings results on Monday, April 27th. The company reported $1.99 earnings per share for the quarter, missing the consensus estimate of $2.11 by ($0.12). The firm had revenue of $13.52 billion during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $13.44 billion. Novartis had a return on equity of 38.82% and a net margin of 24.87%.The company’s revenue for the quarter was down .9% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same period in the previous year, the company posted $2.28 EPS. As a group, analysts expect that Novartis will post 8.82 EPS for the current year.

Novartis Company Profile

Novartis is a Swiss multinational pharmaceutical company headquartered in Basel that researches, develops, manufactures and commercializes prescription medicines and related health-care products. Formed through the 1996 merger of Ciba-Geigy and Sandoz, Novartis operates globally and focuses on bringing therapeutics from discovery through clinical development to commercial markets worldwide.

The company’s activities center on innovative pharmaceuticals across several therapeutic areas, including oncology, immunology, cardiovascular and metabolic diseases, neuroscience and ophthalmology, alongside capabilities in advanced therapies such as biologics, cell and gene therapies.