Foster & Motley Inc. Acquires 222 Shares of Novartis AG (NYSE:NVS)

Foster & Motley Inc. lifted its holdings in Novartis AG (NYSE:NVS) by 1.2% in the 1st quarter, Holdings Channel reports. The firm owned 18,939 shares of the company’s stock after acquiring an additional 222 shares during the period. Foster & Motley Inc.’s holdings in Novartis were worth $2,111,000 as of its most recent SEC filing.

A number of other hedge funds and other institutional investors have also recently modified their holdings of NVS. Castlekeep Investment Advisors LLC bought a new position in Novartis during the 4th quarter valued at about $109,739,000. GAMMA Investing LLC raised its holdings in shares of Novartis by 14,376.4% during the first quarter. GAMMA Investing LLC now owns 727,296 shares of the company’s stock valued at $81,079,000 after purchasing an additional 722,272 shares during the last quarter. Northern Trust Corp lifted its position in Novartis by 23.1% during the fourth quarter. Northern Trust Corp now owns 2,132,591 shares of the company’s stock valued at $207,522,000 after purchasing an additional 399,862 shares during the period. Renaissance Technologies LLC boosted its holdings in Novartis by 16.0% in the fourth quarter. Renaissance Technologies LLC now owns 2,668,849 shares of the company’s stock worth $259,706,000 after purchasing an additional 368,171 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Coleford Investment Management Ltd. bought a new stake in Novartis in the 4th quarter worth approximately $13,824,000. 13.12% of the stock is owned by institutional investors.

Analyst Ratings Changes

Separately, BNP Paribas raised Novartis to a “strong-buy” rating in a report on Tuesday, April 15th. Three equities research analysts have rated the stock with a sell rating, six have given a hold rating, one has assigned a buy rating and two have assigned a strong buy rating to the company. Based on data from MarketBeat, Novartis presently has an average rating of “Hold” and an average price target of $123.67.

Novartis Trading Down 0.4%

Shares of NVS stock opened at $116.72 on Thursday. Novartis AG has a 1 year low of $96.06 and a 1 year high of $124.83. The firm has a fifty day moving average price of $117.87 and a 200-day moving average price of $111.44. The company has a market cap of $246.56 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 16.99, a PEG ratio of 1.65 and a beta of 0.59. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.53, a current ratio of 0.82 and a quick ratio of 0.62.

Novartis (NYSE:NVS) 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. Novartis had a return on equity of 41.08% and a net margin of 25.64%. The business had revenue of $14.05 billion during the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $13.94 billion. During the same quarter in the prior year, the business posted $1.97 earnings per share. The business’s quarterly revenue was up 12.3% on a year-over-year basis. As a group, equities analysts predict that Novartis AG will post 8.45 earnings per share for the current year.

About Novartis

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.