Paloma Partners Management Co Buys Shares of 5,102 Novartis AG $NVS

Key Points

• Paloma Partners Management Co has purchased 5,102 shares of Novartis AG, valued at approximately $569,000, indicating growing interest from institutional investors in the pharmaceutical company.
• Analysts are divided on Novartis, with ratings ranging from a strong buy to a sell, resulting in a current consensus rating of "Hold" and a price target of $123.50.
• Novartis reported quarterly earnings of $2.42 per share, exceeding estimates and showing a year-over-year revenue growth of 12.3%.

Paloma Partners Management Co acquired a new stake in Novartis AG (NYSE:NVS - Free Report) in the first quarter, according to the company in its most recent Form 13F filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission. The firm acquired 5,102 shares of the company's stock, valued at approximately $569,000.

Other hedge funds have also recently added to or reduced their stakes in the company. Nexus Investment Management ULC acquired a new stake in Novartis in the first quarter valued at approximately $25,000. WPG Advisers LLC purchased a new position in shares of Novartis during the first quarter valued at approximately $25,000. Tsfg LLC boosted its position in shares of Novartis by 366.0% during the first quarter. Tsfg LLC now owns 233 shares of the company's stock valued at $26,000 after buying an additional 183 shares during the last quarter. Raiffeisen Bank International AG purchased a new position in shares of Novartis during the fourth quarter valued at approximately $25,000. Finally, Alpine Bank Wealth Management purchased a new position in shares of Novartis during the first quarter valued at approximately $33,000. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 13.12% of the company's stock.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

Several brokerages recently issued reports on NVS. Wall Street Zen cut Novartis from a "strong-buy" rating to a "buy" rating in a research report on Friday, August 22nd. Deutsche Bank Aktiengesellschaft reaffirmed a "buy" rating on shares of Novartis in a research report on Thursday, August 21st. Finally, Morgan Stanley raised Novartis from an "underweight" rating to an "equal weight" rating and set a $123.00 target price on the stock in a research report on Friday, August 8th. One investment analyst has rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, one has issued a Buy rating, five have issued a Hold rating and two have assigned a Sell rating to the company. Based on data from MarketBeat, the company currently has a consensus rating of "Hold" and a consensus target price of $124.33.

Novartis Stock Performance

Novartis stock traded up $1.34 during mid-day trading on Friday, reaching $129.76. 1,339,523 shares of the company's stock were exchanged, compared to its average volume of 1,115,365. The business's fifty day simple moving average is $121.25 and its 200 day simple moving average is $115.10. The firm has a market capitalization of $274.10 billion, a PE ratio of 18.89, a P/E/G ratio of 1.80 and a beta of 0.63. Novartis AG has a one year low of $96.06 and a one year high of $130.46. The company has a quick ratio of 0.62, a current ratio of 0.82 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.53.

Novartis (NYSE:NVS - Get Free Report) last issued its quarterly earnings results on Thursday, July 17th. The company reported $2.42 EPS for the quarter, topping analysts' consensus estimates of $2.38 by $0.04. The business had revenue of $14.05 billion for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $13.94 billion. Novartis had a return on equity of 41.08% and a net margin of 25.64%.Novartis's quarterly revenue was up 12.3% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same period last year, the company posted $1.97 earnings per share. On average, sell-side analysts expect that Novartis AG will post 8.45 earnings per share for the current year.

Novartis Company Profile

Novartis AG engages in the research, development, manufacture, and marketing of healthcare products in Switzerland and internationally. The company offers prescription medicines for patients and physicians. It focuses on therapeutic areas, such as cardiovascular, renal and metabolic, immunology, neuroscience, and oncology, as well as ophthalmology and hematology.