Avantax Advisory Services Inc. Acquires 1,259 Shares of Exact Sciences Corporation (NASDAQ:EXAS)

Avantax Advisory Services Inc. raised its holdings in shares of Exact Sciences Corporation (NASDAQ:EXAS) by 23.6% in the 1st quarter, according to the company in its most recent Form 13F filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The fund owned 6,588 shares of the medical research company’s stock after purchasing an additional 1,259 shares during the quarter. Avantax Advisory Services Inc.’s holdings in Exact Sciences were worth $285,000 at the end of the most recent reporting period.

Several other institutional investors and hedge funds have also made changes to their positions in the business. Capital World Investors lifted its position in shares of Exact Sciences by 10.7% during the fourth quarter. Capital World Investors now owns 17,537,617 shares of the medical research company’s stock worth $985,439,000 after purchasing an additional 1,696,321 shares during the last quarter. Price T Rowe Associates Inc. MD raised its holdings in shares of Exact Sciences by 74.7% in the fourth quarter. Price T Rowe Associates Inc. MD now owns 5,760,241 shares of the medical research company’s stock valued at $323,669,000 after acquiring an additional 2,462,165 shares in the last quarter. T. Rowe Price Investment Management Inc. raised its holdings in shares of Exact Sciences by 25.8% in the fourth quarter. T. Rowe Price Investment Management Inc. now owns 4,269,823 shares of the medical research company’s stock valued at $239,922,000 after acquiring an additional 876,985 shares in the last quarter. Mackenzie Financial Corp raised its holdings in shares of Exact Sciences by 107.7% in the fourth quarter. Mackenzie Financial Corp now owns 2,919,325 shares of the medical research company’s stock valued at $164,037,000 after acquiring an additional 1,513,873 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Spyglass Capital Management LLC raised its holdings in shares of Exact Sciences by 10.2% in the fourth quarter. Spyglass Capital Management LLC now owns 1,539,436 shares of the medical research company’s stock valued at $86,501,000 after acquiring an additional 142,343 shares in the last quarter. 88.82% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors.

Analyst Ratings Changes

EXAS has been the subject of several recent research reports. Cowen restated a “buy” rating on shares of Exact Sciences in a report on Thursday. Royal Bank Of Canada decreased their price objective on Exact Sciences from $54.00 to $46.00 and set a “sector perform” rating for the company in a report on Thursday. UBS Group decreased their price objective on Exact Sciences from $61.00 to $53.00 and set a “neutral” rating for the company in a report on Thursday. Wall Street Zen upgraded Exact Sciences from a “hold” rating to a “buy” rating in a report on Saturday. Finally, Evercore ISI decreased their price objective on Exact Sciences from $68.00 to $64.00 and set an “outperform” rating for the company in a report on Friday. Three research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, twenty-one have given a buy rating and one has assigned a strong buy rating to the company’s stock. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, Exact Sciences currently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $68.62.

Insider Buying and Selling

In related news, Director Katherine S. Zanotti sold 3,207 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Friday, June 13th. The stock was sold at an average price of $53.20, for a total value of $170,612.40. Following the sale, the director owned 72,759 shares in the company, valued at $3,870,778.80. This represents a 4.22% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available at this hyperlink. 1.20% of the stock is currently owned by corporate insiders.

Exact Sciences Price Performance

Shares of EXAS stock opened at $40.99 on Friday. Exact Sciences Corporation has a fifty-two week low of $38.81 and a fifty-two week high of $72.83. The firm has a market capitalization of $7.76 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of -7.55, a PEG ratio of 9.22 and a beta of 0.93. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.94, a quick ratio of 2.38 and a current ratio of 2.89. The stock’s 50-day simple moving average is $51.55 and its 200-day simple moving average is $50.07.

Exact Sciences (NASDAQ:EXAS) last issued its earnings results on Wednesday, August 6th. The medical research company reported $0.22 EPS for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of ($0.02) by $0.24. The firm had revenue of $811.09 million for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $774.43 million. Exact Sciences had a negative return on equity of 1.75% and a negative net margin of 34.19%. Exact Sciences’s revenue for the quarter was up 16.0% on a year-over-year basis. During the same quarter in the prior year, the firm earned ($0.09) earnings per share. As a group, equities analysts forecast that Exact Sciences Corporation will post -0.58 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

About Exact Sciences

Exact Sciences Corporation provides cancer screening and diagnostic test products in the United States and internationally. The company offers Cologuard, a non-invasive stool-based DNA screening test to detect DNA and hemoglobin biomarkers associated with colorectal cancer and pre-cancer. It also provides Oncotype DX Breast Recurrence Score Test; Oncotype DX Breast DCIS Score Test; Oncotype DX Colon Recurrence Score Test; OncoExTra Test for tumor profiling for patients with advanced, metastatic, refractory, relapsed, or recurrent cancer; and Covid-19 testing services.