Davis Selected Advisers LP recently announced the acquisition of new stake in Viatris Inc (NASDAQ:VTRS). The institutional investor has increased its shareholding in the Healthcare company by 1.77% to 64.06 million shares with purchase of 1.12 million shares. This fresh investment now brings its stake to 5.34% valued currently at $588.11 million. In addition, BlackRock Fund Advisors raised its holdings by 0.53 million to 60.35 million shares. And T. Rowe Price Associates, Inc. has lifted its position by 3.73% or 1.74 million shares – to 48.58 million shares.
With over 12.46 million Viatris Inc (VTRS) shares trading Tuesday and a closing price of $11.39 on the day, the dollar volume was approximately $141.92 million. The shares have shown a positive half year performance of 15.17% and its price on 01/02/24 gained nearly 5.17%. Currently, there are 1.21B common shares owned by the public and among those 1.18B shares have been available to trade.
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Insiders at the company have transacted a total of 119 times over the past 12 months, according to data filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). 68 of these insider trades were purchases, accounting for 1,599,493 shares. Insider sales of the common stock occurred on 51 occasions, with total insider shares sold totaling 647,975 shares.
The top 3 mutual fund holders in Viatris Inc are Vanguard Total Stock Market ETF, Vanguard 500 Index Fund, and Vanguard Mid Cap Index Fund. Vanguard Total Stock Market ETF owns 37.61 million shares of the company’s stock, all valued at over $345.27 million. The company bought an additional 46016.0 shares recently to bring their total holdings to about 3.14% of the shares outstanding. Vanguard 500 Index Fund bought 0.13 million shares to see its total holdings expand to 28.95 million shares valued at over $265.8 million and representing 2.41% of the shares outstanding. Vanguard Mid Cap Index Fund bought 50414.0 shares to bring its total holdings to over 27.22 million shares at a value of $249.89 million. Vanguard Mid Cap Index Fund now owns shares totaling to 2.27% of the shares outstanding.
Shares of Viatris Inc (NASDAQ: VTRS) opened at $10.79, down -$0.04 from a prior closing price of $10.83. However, the script later moved the day high at 11.42, up 5.17%. The company’s stock has a 5-day price change of 6.95% and 13.33% over the past three months. VTRS shares are trading 5.17% year to date (YTD), with the 12-month market performance up to 2.34% higher. It has a 12-month low price of $8.74 and touched a high of $12.40 over the same period. VTRS has an average intraday trading volume of 8.96 million shares. The stock is trading above its simple moving averages at the SMA20, SMA50, and SMA200, as the current price level is off by 11.76%, 19.03%, and 15.92% respectively.
Institutional ownership of Viatris Inc (NASDAQ: VTRS) shares accounts for 78.45% of the company’s 1.21B shares outstanding. Mutual fund holders own 32.58%, while other institutional holders and individual stakeholders account for 46.11% and 0.33% respectively.
It has a market capitalization of $13.66B and a beta (3y monthly) value of 1.13. The stock’s trailing 12-month PE ratio is 7.55, while the earnings-per-share (ttm) stands at $1.51. Price movements for the stock have been influenced by the stock’s volatility, which stands at 2.17% over the week and 2.44% over the month.
Analysts forecast that Viatris Inc (VTRS) will achieve an EPS of $0.65 for the current quarter, $0.74 for the next quarter and $2.8 for 2024. The lowest estimate earnings-per-share for the quarter is $0.57 while analysts give the company a high EPS estimate of $0.7. Comparatively, EPS for the current quarter was $0.67 a year ago. Earnings per share for the fiscal year are expected to decrease by -11.59%, and -5.65% over the next financial year. EPS should shrink at an annualized rate of -2.50% over the next five years, compared to 5.60% over the past 5-year period.
If you are looking to buy this stock, then you may note that the average analyst recommendation by 12 brokerage firm advisors rate Viatris Inc (VTRS) as a “Moderate Buy” at a consensus score of 2.83. Specifically, 1 Wall Street analysts polled rate the stock as a buy, while 6 of the 12 advise that investors “hold,” and 1 rated it as a “Sell.”
Looking at the support for the VTRS, a number of firms have released research notes about the stock. BofA Securities stated their Underperform rating for the stock in a research note on October 23, 2023, with the firm’s price target at $13-$9.
