Marshall Financial Group LLC Purchases New Position in Novartis AG $NVS

Marshall Financial Group LLC purchased a new stake in Novartis AG (NYSE:NVS) in the second quarter, HoldingsChannel reports. The fund purchased 15,634 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $1,909,000.

A number of other hedge funds and other institutional investors also recently added to or reduced their stakes in the company. Dimensional Fund Advisors LP raised its position in Novartis by 5.2% in the 1st quarter. Dimensional Fund Advisors LP now owns 8,606,724 shares of the company’s stock worth $959,535,000 after purchasing an additional 422,869 shares during the period. Goldman Sachs Group Inc. increased its position in shares of Novartis by 60.3% during the first quarter. Goldman Sachs Group Inc. now owns 3,660,485 shares of the company’s stock worth $408,071,000 after acquiring an additional 1,377,252 shares during the period. Northern Trust Corp increased its position in shares of Novartis by 2.2% during the first quarter. Northern Trust Corp now owns 2,180,281 shares of the company’s stock worth $243,058,000 after acquiring an additional 47,690 shares during the period. New Vernon Capital Holdings II LLC increased its holdings in Novartis by 12,664.1% during the first quarter. New Vernon Capital Holdings II LLC now owns 1,383,244 shares of the company’s stock valued at $154,204,000 after buying an additional 1,372,407 shares during the period. Finally, Scharf Investments LLC increased its holdings in Novartis by 4.6% during the first quarter. Scharf Investments LLC now owns 1,258,639 shares of the company’s stock valued at $140,313,000 after buying an additional 55,316 shares during the period. 13.12% of the stock is owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

Novartis Price Performance

Shares of NVS opened at $122.44 on Thursday. The company’s fifty day simple moving average is $121.75 and its 200 day simple moving average is $116.03. The company has a market cap of $258.64 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 17.82, a PEG ratio of 1.72 and a beta of 0.63. Novartis AG has a 1-year low of $96.06 and a 1-year high of $130.46. The company has a current ratio of 0.82, a quick ratio of 0.62 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.53.

Novartis (NYSE:NVS) last released its quarterly earnings data on Thursday, July 17th. The company reported $2.42 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $2.38 by $0.04. The company had revenue of $14.05 billion during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $13.94 billion. Novartis had a return on equity of 41.08% and a net margin of 25.64%.The firm’s revenue was up 12.3% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same quarter in the prior year, the firm posted $1.97 earnings per share. On average, research analysts forecast that Novartis AG will post 8.45 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

Several brokerages recently issued reports on NVS. Morgan Stanley raised shares of Novartis from an “underweight” rating to an “equal weight” rating and set a $123.00 price objective on the stock in a report on Friday, August 8th. The Goldman Sachs Group restated a “sell” rating and set a $118.00 target price (down from $119.00) on shares of Novartis in a research report on Friday, September 12th. Deutsche Bank Aktiengesellschaft reaffirmed a “buy” rating on shares of Novartis in a report on Thursday, August 21st. Finally, Wall Street Zen cut shares of Novartis from a “strong-buy” rating to a “buy” rating in a research note on Friday, August 22nd. One investment analyst has rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, one has given a Buy rating, four have issued a Hold rating and three have assigned a Sell rating to the stock. According to data from MarketBeat, the stock currently has a consensus rating of “Hold” and a consensus target price of $120.33.

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.