Centene (NYSE:CNC) Hits New 12-Month Low at $60.89

Centene Co. (NYSE:CNC)’s share price reached a new 52-week low during trading on Friday . The stock traded as low as $60.89 and last traded at $60.93, with a volume of 737172 shares trading hands. The stock had previously closed at $61.65.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

CNC has been the subject of several research reports. Morgan Stanley downgraded Centene from an “overweight” rating to an “equal weight” rating and dropped their target price for the company from $94.00 to $73.00 in a research report on Wednesday. Mizuho lowered their price objective on Centene from $80.00 to $76.00 in a research report on Tuesday, July 11th. Wolfe Research downgraded Centene from an “outperform” rating to a “peer perform” rating in a research report on Wednesday, July 12th. Barclays lowered their price objective on Centene from $86.00 to $85.00 and set an “overweight” rating for the company in a research report on Monday, July 31st. Finally, UBS Group initiated coverage on Centene in a research report on Tuesday, June 20th. They set a “neutral” rating and a $72.00 price objective for the company. One equities research analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, eight have assigned a hold rating and seven have assigned a buy rating to the company’s stock. According to MarketBeat, the company presently has a consensus rating of “Hold” and an average target price of $84.94.

Centene Stock Down 0.6 %

The company has a quick ratio of 1.11, a current ratio of 1.11 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.69. The stock has a 50 day simple moving average of $66.15 and a 200 day simple moving average of $66.55. The stock has a market cap of $33.18 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 12.63, a PEG ratio of 0.88 and a beta of 0.57.

Centene (NYSE:CNC) last announced its earnings results on Friday, July 28th. The company reported $2.10 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $2.05 by $0.05. The company had revenue of $37.61 billion for the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $36.56 billion. Centene had a return on equity of 14.15% and a net margin of 1.83%. Centene’s quarterly revenue was up 4.7% on a year-over-year basis. During the same quarter in the previous year, the firm earned $1.77 earnings per share. As a group, analysts expect that Centene Co. will post 6.46 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Institutional Inflows and Outflows

Hedge funds have recently modified their holdings of the stock. CIBC Asset Management Inc lifted its holdings in Centene by 6.2% during the fourth quarter. CIBC Asset Management Inc now owns 82,359 shares of the company’s stock worth $6,754,000 after acquiring an additional 4,844 shares during the period. Resources Investment Advisors LLC. lifted its holdings in Centene by 36.5% during the first quarter. Resources Investment Advisors LLC. now owns 5,009 shares of the company’s stock worth $317,000 after acquiring an additional 1,340 shares during the period. Altfest L J & Co. Inc. bought a new stake in Centene during the first quarter worth $206,000. Empirical Financial Services LLC d.b.a. Empirical Wealth Management lifted its holdings in Centene by 9.4% during the first quarter. Empirical Financial Services LLC d.b.a. Empirical Wealth Management now owns 15,044 shares of the company’s stock worth $951,000 after acquiring an additional 1,287 shares during the period. Finally, Commonwealth of Pennsylvania Public School Empls Retrmt SYS lifted its holdings in Centene by 14.5% during the fourth quarter. Commonwealth of Pennsylvania Public School Empls Retrmt SYS now owns 95,717 shares of the company’s stock worth $7,850,000 after acquiring an additional 12,112 shares during the period. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 90.92% of the company’s stock.

About Centene

Centene Corporation operates as a healthcare enterprise that provides programs and services to under-insured and uninsured families, commercial organizations, and military families in the United States. It operates in two segments, Managed Care and Specialty Services. The Managed Care segment offers health plan coverage to individuals through government subsidized programs, including Medicaid, the State children's health insurance program, long-term services and support, foster care, and medicare-medicaid plans, which cover dually eligible individuals, as well as aged, blind, or disabled programs.