Head to Head Comparison: Anthem (ANTX) vs. Its Competitors

Anthem (NASDAQ:ANTX) is one of 226 publicly-traded companies in the “Pharmaceutical preparations” industry, but how does it weigh in compared to its peers? We will compare Anthem to related companies based on the strength of its analyst recommendations, dividends, valuation, institutional ownership, risk, profitability and earnings.

Analyst Recommendations

This is a summary of current recommendations for Anthem and its peers, as provided by MarketBeat.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
Anthem	1	0	1	0	2.00
Anthem Competitors	2263	2494	4571	71	2.26

Anthem currently has a consensus target price of $2.00, suggesting a potential downside of 44.60%. As a group, “Pharmaceutical preparations” companies have a potential upside of 123.37%. Given Anthem’s peers stronger consensus rating and higher possible upside, analysts clearly believe Anthem has less favorable growth aspects than its peers.

Valuation and Earnings

This table compares Anthem and its peers gross revenue, earnings per share (EPS) and valuation.

	Gross Revenue	Net Income	Price/Earnings Ratio
Anthem	N/A	-$35.17 million	-3.11
Anthem Competitors	$327.34 million	-$27.48 million	-4.54

Anthem’s peers have higher revenue and earnings than Anthem. Anthem is trading at a higher price-to-earnings ratio than its peers, indicating that it is currently more expensive than other companies in its industry.

Profitability

This table compares Anthem and its peers’ net margins, return on equity and return on assets.

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
Anthem	N/A	-55.04%	-49.13%
Anthem Competitors	-4,724.33%	-252.77%	-49.42%

Insider & Institutional Ownership

90.5% of Anthem shares are owned by institutional investors. Comparatively, 32.4% of shares of all “Pharmaceutical preparations” companies are owned by institutional investors. 20.8% of Anthem shares are owned by insiders. Comparatively, 14.5% of shares of all “Pharmaceutical preparations” companies are owned by insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that hedge funds, endowments and large money managers believe a stock is poised for long-term growth.

Volatility and Risk

Anthem has a beta of -1.31, suggesting that its stock price is 231% less volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, Anthem’s peers have a beta of 11.77, suggesting that their average stock price is 1,077% more volatile than the S&P 500.

Summary

Anthem beats its peers on 7 of the 13 factors compared.

Anthem Company Profile

Anthem, Inc., through its subsidiaries, operates as a health benefits company in the United States. It operates through three segments: Commercial & Specialty Business, Government Business, and Other. The company offers a spectrum of network-based managed care health benefit plans to large and small group, individual, Medicaid, and Medicare markets. Its managed care plans include preferred provider organizations; health maintenance organizations; point-of-service plans; traditional indemnity plans and other hybrid plans, such as consumer-driven health plans; and hospital only and limited benefit products. The company also provides a range of managed care services to self-funded customers, including claims processing, underwriting, stop loss insurance, actuarial services, provider network access, medical cost management, disease management, wellness programs, and other administrative services. In addition, it offers an array of specialty and other insurance products and services, such as dental, vision, life and disability insurance benefits, radiology benefit management, and analytics-driven personal health care guidance; and Medicare administrative services. Further, the company provides services to the federal government in connection with the Federal Employee Program; and operates as a licensee of the Blue Cross and Blue Shield Association. As of December 31, 2017, it served 40.2 million medical members through its affiliated health plans. The company was formerly known as WellPoint, Inc. and changed its name to Anthem, Inc. in December 2014. Anthem, Inc. was founded in 1944 and is headquartered in Indianapolis, Indiana.