Avestar Capital LLC Takes $326,000 Position in CVS Health Co. (NYSE:CVS)

Avestar Capital LLC bought a new stake in CVS Health Co. (NYSE:CVS) in the third quarter, according to the company in its most recent 13F filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The firm bought 5,178 shares of the pharmacy operator’s stock, valued at approximately $326,000.

A number of other institutional investors and hedge funds also recently made changes to their positions in the company. Pzena Investment Management LLC lifted its stake in shares of CVS Health by 1.5% in the 3rd quarter. Pzena Investment Management LLC now owns 13,135,308 shares of the pharmacy operator’s stock valued at $825,948,000 after purchasing an additional 198,920 shares during the period. Charles Schwab Investment Management Inc. increased its position in CVS Health by 2.6% during the 3rd quarter. Charles Schwab Investment Management Inc. now owns 12,208,668 shares of the pharmacy operator’s stock valued at $767,681,000 after buying an additional 304,386 shares in the last quarter. AQR Capital Management LLC increased its position in CVS Health by 33.5% during the 2nd quarter. AQR Capital Management LLC now owns 5,289,788 shares of the pharmacy operator’s stock valued at $310,722,000 after buying an additional 1,327,855 shares in the last quarter. National Pension Service increased its position in CVS Health by 17.4% during the 3rd quarter. National Pension Service now owns 2,843,402 shares of the pharmacy operator’s stock valued at $178,793,000 after buying an additional 421,416 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Bank of Montreal Can increased its position in CVS Health by 2.4% during the 2nd quarter. Bank of Montreal Can now owns 2,436,343 shares of the pharmacy operator’s stock valued at $143,890,000 after buying an additional 57,214 shares in the last quarter. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 80.66% of the company’s stock.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

A number of research analysts recently weighed in on CVS shares. Wells Fargo & Company raised CVS Health from an “equal weight” rating to an “overweight” rating and raised their price objective for the company from $60.00 to $66.00 in a research report on Monday, November 18th. Truist Financial reissued a “buy” rating and issued a $67.00 target price (down previously from $76.00) on shares of CVS Health in a report on Wednesday, November 20th. TD Cowen lifted their target price on CVS Health from $73.00 to $80.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a report on Monday. StockNews.com lowered CVS Health from a “hold” rating to a “sell” rating in a report on Thursday, November 14th. Finally, Royal Bank of Canada reduced their target price on CVS Health from $68.00 to $58.00 and set an “outperform” rating for the company in a report on Friday, November 15th. One analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, seven have assigned a hold rating and thirteen have issued a buy rating to the company. According to MarketBeat, the stock currently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average price target of $70.33.

CVS Health Price Performance

NYSE CVS opened at $59.96 on Thursday. The company has a market capitalization of $75.45 billion, a PE ratio of 15.22, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 1.01 and a beta of 0.55. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.80, a quick ratio of 0.59 and a current ratio of 0.80. The business’s fifty day moving average is $59.30 and its 200 day moving average is $58.72. CVS Health Co. has a fifty-two week low of $52.71 and a fifty-two week high of $83.25.

CVS Health (NYSE:CVS) last released its earnings results on Wednesday, November 6th. The pharmacy operator reported $1.09 earnings per share for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $1.08 by $0.01. The company had revenue of $95.43 billion for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $92.72 billion. CVS Health had a return on equity of 10.72% and a net margin of 1.36%. CVS Health’s quarterly revenue was up 6.3% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same period in the previous year, the business earned $2.21 earnings per share. Sell-side analysts predict that CVS Health Co. will post 5.43 earnings per share for the current year.

CVS Health Announces Dividend

The firm also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Friday, November 1st. Stockholders of record on Monday, October 21st were given a $0.665 dividend. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Monday, October 21st. This represents a $2.66 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 4.44%. CVS Health’s payout ratio is 67.51%.

CVS Health Company Profile

CVS Health Corporation provides health solutions in the United States. It operates through Health Care Benefits, Health Services, and Pharmacy & Consumer Wellness segments. The Health Care Benefits segment offers traditional, voluntary, and consumer-directed health insurance products and related services.