The Vanguard Group, Inc. recently announced the acquisition of new stake in Alcon Inc. (NYSE:ALC). The institutional investor has increased its shareholding in the Healthcare company by 1.07% to 12.96 million shares with purchase of 0.14 million shares. This fresh investment now brings its stake to 2.59% valued currently at $1.01 billion. In addition, Norges Bank Investment Management raised its holdings by 0.45 million to 11.72 million shares. And Credit Suisse Asset Management has lifted its position by 1.53% or 0.18 million shares – to 11.71 million shares.
With over 0.44 million Alcon Inc. (ALC) shares trading Friday and a closing price of $80.05 on the day, the dollar volume was approximately $35.42 million. The shares have shown a negative half year performance of -5.63% and its price on 01/12/24 gained nearly 0.45%. Currently, there are 491.80M common shares owned by the public and among those 483.83M shares have been available to trade.
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An analysis of what Wall Street brokers have to say about the expected price targets for this stock gives us this picture: 28 analysts who have offered their price forecasts for ALC have a consensus price objective of $75.55. The analysts have set the share’s price value over the next 12 months at a high of $90.00 and a low of $56.82. The average price target is 8.88% above its recent price level and a downside to the estimated low will see the stock lose -40.88% over that period. But an upside of 11.06% will see the stock hit the forecast high price target while median target price for the stock is $75.39.
Insiders at the company have transacted a total of 5 times over the past 12 months, according to data filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). 1 of these insider trades were purchases, accounting for 3,000 shares. Insider sales of the common stock occurred on 4 occasions, with total insider shares sold totaling 24,399 shares.
The top 3 mutual fund holders in Alcon Inc. are Government Pension Fund – Global, Vanguard Total International Stoc, and Vanguard Developed Markets Index. Government Pension Fund – Global owns 11.63 million shares of the company’s stock, all valued at over $908.72 million. The company bought an additional 0.55 million shares recently to bring their total holdings to about 2.33% of the shares outstanding. Vanguard Total International Stoc bought 13453.0 shares to see its total holdings expand to 6.69 million shares valued at over $522.67 million and representing 1.34% of the shares outstanding. Vanguard Developed Markets Index bought 31552.0 shares to bring its total holdings to over 3.99 million shares at a value of $311.8 million. Vanguard Developed Markets Index now owns shares totaling to 0.80% of the shares outstanding.
Shares of Alcon Inc. (NYSE: ALC) opened at $80.20, up $0.51 from a prior closing price of $79.69. However, the script later moved the day high at 80.54, up 0.45%. The company’s stock has a 5-day price change of 6.62% and 8.38% over the past three months. ALC shares are trading 2.47% year to date (YTD), with the 12-month market performance up to 11.30% higher. It has a 12-month low price of $63.78 and touched a high of $86.20 over the same period. ALC has an average intraday trading volume of 843.93K shares. The stock is trading above its simple moving averages at the SMA20, SMA50, and SMA200, as the current price level is off by 4.29%, 7.59%, and 3.55% respectively.
Institutional ownership of Alcon Inc. (NYSE: ALC) shares accounts for 51.69% of the company’s 491.80M shares outstanding. Mutual fund holders own 45.25%, while other institutional holders and individual stakeholders account for 6.48% and — respectively.
It has a market capitalization of $39.37B and a beta (3y monthly) value of 0.90. The stock’s trailing 12-month PE ratio is 88.37, while the earnings-per-share (ttm) stands at $0.91. The company has a PEG of 5.52 and a Quick Ratio of 1.29 with the debt-to-equity ratio at 0.25. Price movements for the stock have been influenced by the stock’s volatility, which stands at 1.58% over the week and 1.37% over the month.
Analysts forecast that Alcon Inc. (ALC) will achieve an EPS of $0.68 for the current quarter, $0.75 for the next quarter and $3.02 for 2024. The lowest estimate earnings-per-share for the quarter is $0.65 while analysts give the company a high EPS estimate of $0.7. Comparatively, EPS for the current quarter was $0.42 a year ago. Earnings per share for the fiscal year are expected to increase by 21.42%, and 11.54% over the next financial year. EPS should grow at an annualized rate of 16.01% over the next five years, compared to 5.41% over the past 5-year period.
If you are looking to buy this stock, then you may note that the average analyst recommendation by 28 brokerage firm advisors rate Alcon Inc. (ALC) as a “Strong Buy” at a consensus score of 1.79. Specifically, 18 Wall Street analysts polled rate the stock as a buy, while 4 of the 28 advise that investors “hold,” and 2 rated it as a “Sell.”
