AbbVie (NYSE:ABBV) Coverage Initiated by Analysts at Piper Sandler

Piper Sandler started coverage on shares of AbbVie (NYSE:ABBV) in a research note issued to investors on Tuesday morning, MarketBeat reports. The brokerage issued an overweight rating and a $231.00 price objective on the stock.

ABBV has been the topic of several other research reports. Evercore ISI raised their price target on shares of AbbVie from $204.00 to $205.00 and gave the company an “outperform” rating in a report on Monday, April 28th. Daiwa America upgraded shares of AbbVie from a “hold” rating to a “strong-buy” rating in a report on Thursday, August 7th. Morgan Stanley raised their price target on shares of AbbVie from $250.00 to $255.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a report on Friday, August 1st. BNP Paribas upgraded shares of AbbVie to a “hold” rating in a research note on Thursday, May 8th. Finally, Citigroup lifted their price objective on shares of AbbVie to $205.00 and gave the company a “hold” rating in a research note on Wednesday, June 11th. Six equities research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, eighteen have issued a buy rating and four have issued a strong buy rating to the stock. According to data from MarketBeat.com, the company has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $214.95.

AbbVie Price Performance

ABBV opened at $198.56 on Tuesday. The company’s 50 day simple moving average is $190.11 and its 200 day simple moving average is $191.60. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 44.14, a quick ratio of 0.61 and a current ratio of 0.74. AbbVie has a 1 year low of $163.81 and a 1 year high of $218.66. The stock has a market capitalization of $350.77 billion, a PE ratio of 94.55, a P/E/G ratio of 1.28 and a beta of 0.50.

AbbVie (NYSE:ABBV) last posted its quarterly earnings results on Thursday, July 31st. The company reported $2.97 EPS for the quarter, missing the consensus estimate of $3.24 by ($0.27). AbbVie had a net margin of 6.45% and a return on equity of 699.66%. The business had revenue of $15.42 billion during the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $14.93 billion. During the same quarter in the previous year, the business posted $2.65 EPS. The company’s quarterly revenue was up 6.6% on a year-over-year basis. As a group, sell-side analysts expect that AbbVie will post 12.31 EPS for the current year.

AbbVie Announces Dividend

The firm also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Friday, August 15th. Shareholders of record on Tuesday, July 15th will be issued a $1.64 dividend. This represents a $6.56 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 3.3%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Tuesday, July 15th. AbbVie’s payout ratio is currently 312.38%.

Insider Buying and Selling

In other AbbVie news, EVP Nicholas Donoghoe sold 13,295 shares of AbbVie stock in a transaction on Tuesday, August 5th. The shares were sold at an average price of $198.51, for a total value of $2,639,190.45. Following the completion of the transaction, the executive vice president owned 58,247 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $11,562,611.97. The trade was a 18.58% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which is available through this link. 0.08% of the stock is currently owned by corporate insiders.

Hedge Funds Weigh In On AbbVie

A number of hedge funds have recently added to or reduced their stakes in the business. Marshall & Sullivan Inc. WA acquired a new position in shares of AbbVie during the second quarter valued at $25,000. TD Capital Management LLC boosted its holdings in shares of AbbVie by 82.9% during the first quarter. TD Capital Management LLC now owns 128 shares of the company’s stock valued at $27,000 after acquiring an additional 58 shares during the period. Spurstone Advisory Services LLC acquired a new position in shares of AbbVie during the second quarter valued at $28,000. Abound Financial LLC acquired a new position in shares of AbbVie during the first quarter valued at $30,000. Finally, Siemens Fonds Invest GmbH boosted its holdings in shares of AbbVie by 197.6% during the fourth quarter. Siemens Fonds Invest GmbH now owns 179,440 shares of the company’s stock valued at $32,000 after acquiring an additional 119,141 shares during the period. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 70.23% of the company’s stock.

About AbbVie

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.