AbbVie’s (ABBV) Overweight Rating Reiterated at Piper Sandler Companies

Piper Sandler Companies restated their overweight rating on shares of AbbVie (NYSE:ABBV) in a report published on Tuesday morning,Stock Target Advisor reports. Piper Sandler Companies currently has a $220.00 price objective on the stock.

A number of other equities research analysts have also weighed in on the stock. Daiwa America lowered shares of AbbVie from a “strong-buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a report on Thursday, December 5th. William Blair upgraded shares of AbbVie to a “strong-buy” rating in a research note on Friday, August 30th. Daiwa Capital Markets cut shares of AbbVie from an “outperform” rating to a “neutral” rating and set a $180.00 price target for the company. in a research report on Thursday, December 5th. Wells Fargo & Company lifted their target price on AbbVie to $195.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a research report on Tuesday, November 19th. Finally, TD Cowen raised their price target on AbbVie from $195.00 to $225.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a research note on Monday, October 7th. Five equities research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, seventeen have assigned a buy rating and two have assigned a strong buy rating to the company’s stock. According to data from MarketBeat.com, AbbVie presently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average price target of $205.70.

AbbVie Stock Performance

Shares of AbbVie stock opened at $171.52 on Tuesday. The company has a quick ratio of 0.54, a current ratio of 0.65 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 9.64. The firm has a market cap of $303.10 billion, a PE ratio of 59.56, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 1.92 and a beta of 0.58. The business’s fifty day simple moving average is $182.94 and its 200-day simple moving average is $183.24. AbbVie has a 52 week low of $151.29 and a 52 week high of $207.32.

AbbVie (NYSE:ABBV) last released its quarterly earnings results on Wednesday, October 30th. The company reported $3.00 EPS for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $2.92 by $0.08. The business had revenue of $14.46 billion during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $14.28 billion. AbbVie had a return on equity of 244.01% and a net margin of 9.22%. The company’s quarterly revenue was up 3.8% on a year-over-year basis. During the same period last year, the business posted $2.95 earnings per share. Equities analysts forecast that AbbVie will post 10.96 earnings per share for the current year.

AbbVie Increases Dividend

The company also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Friday, February 14th. Stockholders of record on Wednesday, January 15th will be issued a dividend of $1.64 per share. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Wednesday, January 15th. This is an increase from AbbVie’s previous quarterly dividend of $1.55. This represents a $6.56 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 3.82%. AbbVie’s payout ratio is 227.78%.

Insiders Place Their Bets

In other AbbVie news, SVP Kevin K. Buckbee sold 1,800 shares of the stock in a transaction that occurred on Monday, December 16th. The shares were sold at an average price of $172.24, for a total transaction of $310,032.00. Following the transaction, the senior vice president now owns 6,983 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $1,202,751.92. This trade represents a 20.49 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which is accessible through this hyperlink. 0.25% of the stock is owned by corporate insiders.

Institutional Trading of AbbVie

A number of institutional investors have recently modified their holdings of the company. Fairway Wealth LLC purchased a new position in AbbVie in the second quarter valued at about $26,000. Ridgewood Investments LLC acquired a new position in shares of AbbVie during the second quarter worth $27,000. Groupama Asset Managment boosted its stake in shares of AbbVie by 40.3% in the third quarter. Groupama Asset Managment now owns 135,749 shares of the company’s stock valued at $27,000 after purchasing an additional 38,974 shares during the period. RPg Family Wealth Advisory LLC acquired a new stake in AbbVie during the 3rd quarter valued at $28,000. Finally, Quest Partners LLC increased its stake in AbbVie by 4,140.0% during the 2nd quarter. Quest Partners LLC now owns 212 shares of the company’s stock worth $36,000 after buying an additional 207 shares during the period. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 70.23% of the company’s stock.

AbbVie Company Profile

AbbVie Inc discovers, develops, manufactures, and sells pharmaceuticals worldwide. The company offers Humira, an injection for autoimmune and intestinal Behçet's diseases, and pyoderma gangrenosum; Skyrizi to treat moderate to severe plaque psoriasis, psoriatic disease, and Crohn's disease; Rinvoq to treat rheumatoid and psoriatic arthritis, ankylosing spondylitis, atopic dermatitis, axial spondyloarthropathy, ulcerative colitis, and Crohn's disease; Imbruvica for the treatment of adult patients with blood cancers; Epkinly to treat lymphoma; Elahere to treat cancer; and Venclexta/Venclyxto to treat blood cancers.