AmerisourceBergen - ABC Stock Forecast, Price & News

AmerisourceBergen Corporation sources and distributes pharmaceutical products in the United States and internationally. Its Pharmaceutical Distribution segment distributes brand-name and generic pharmaceuticals, over-the-counter healthcare products, home healthcare supplies and equipment, and related services to various healthcare providers, including acute care hospitals and health systems, independent and chain retail pharmacies, mail order pharmacies, medical clinics, long-term care and alternate site pharmacies, and other customers. It also provides pharmacy management, staffing, and other consulting services; supply management software to retail and institutional healthcare providers; and packaging solutions to various institutional and retail healthcare providers. In addition, this segment distributes plasma and other blood products, injectable pharmaceuticals, vaccines, and other specialty products; provides other services primarily to physicians who specialize in various disease states, primarily oncology, as well as to other healthcare providers, including hospitals and dialysis clinics; and offers data analytics, outcomes research, and additional services for biotechnology and pharmaceutical manufacturers. The company's Other segment provides integrated manufacturer services, such as clinical trial support, product post-approval, and commercialization support; specialty transportation and logistics services for the biopharmaceutical industry; and sells pharmaceuticals, vaccines, parasiticides, diagnostics, micro feed ingredients, and various other products to customers in the companion animal and production animal markets, as well as demand-creating sales force services to manufacturers. AmerisourceBergen Corporation was incorporated in 2001 and is headquartered in Conshohocken, Pennsylvania.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

A number of research analysts have recently issued reports on the stock. Argus lifted their price objective on shares of AmerisourceBergen from $160.00 to $170.00 and gave the stock a "buy" rating in a research report on Wednesday, July 20th. Barclays upgraded shares of AmerisourceBergen from an "equal weight" rating to an "overweight" rating and lifted their price objective for the company from $175.00 to $182.00 in a research note on Thursday, May 26th. Robert W. Baird boosted their target price on shares of AmerisourceBergen from $179.00 to $187.00 in a research note on Thursday, May 5th. StockNews.com raised shares of AmerisourceBergen from a "buy" rating to a "strong-buy" rating in a report on Tuesday, August 9th. Finally, Cowen reduced their price target on shares of AmerisourceBergen from $171.00 to $170.00 in a research report on Thursday, June 9th. Three research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, six have issued a buy rating and one has issued a strong buy rating to the stock. Based on data from MarketBeat, the company has a consensus rating of "Moderate Buy" and a consensus target price of $173.45.

AmerisourceBergen Stock Performance

Shares of NYSE:ABC traded down $1.79 on Wednesday, hitting $150.87. The company's stock had a trading volume of 6,329 shares, compared to its average volume of 1,002,539. AmerisourceBergen has a 12 month low of $113.68 and a 12 month high of $167.19. The company has a market capitalization of $31.60 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 17.33, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 1.67 and a beta of 0.48. The stock's 50-day moving average is $143.43 and its two-hundred day moving average is $148.31. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 8.96, a quick ratio of 0.55 and a current ratio of 0.92.

AmerisourceBergen (NYSE:ABC - Get Rating) last released its quarterly earnings results on Wednesday, August 3rd. The company reported $2.62 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $2.56 by $0.06. The company had revenue of $60.06 billion during the quarter, compared to analysts' expectations of $59.03 billion. AmerisourceBergen had a return on equity of 350.60% and a net margin of 0.78%. The company's revenue for the quarter was up 12.5% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same quarter in the prior year, the business posted $2.16 earnings per share. On average, equities research analysts forecast that AmerisourceBergen will post 10.99 EPS for the current year.

AmerisourceBergen Dividend Announcement

The company also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Monday, August 29th. Stockholders of record on Monday, August 15th will be issued a $0.46 dividend. The ex-dividend date is Friday, August 12th. This represents a $1.84 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 1.22%. AmerisourceBergen's dividend payout ratio (DPR) is 21.10%.

Insider Activity

In other news, CEO Steven H. Collis sold 11,480 shares of the company's stock in a transaction on Tuesday, July 12th. The stock was sold at an average price of $142.35, for a total transaction of $1,634,178.00. Following the completion of the sale, the chief executive officer now directly owns 205,178 shares of the company's stock, valued at $29,207,088.30. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which is available at the SEC website. Insiders sold a total of 34,440 shares of company stock worth $4,911,374 over the last 90 days. 28.80% of the stock is currently owned by company insiders.