Cerner Co. (NASDAQ:CERN) saw unusually large options trading activity on Wednesday. Stock traders acquired 52,465 call options on the stock. This is an increase of approximately 1,458% compared to the average volume of 3,368 call options.
Several research firms have recently commented on CERN. Barclays upped their price objective on shares of Cerner from $77.00 to $79.00 and gave the company an “equal weight” rating in a report on Monday, November 1st. Canaccord Genuity cut shares of Cerner from a “buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a research report on Monday. Morgan Stanley increased their target price on shares of Cerner from $85.00 to $95.00 and gave the company an “equal weight” rating in a research report on Tuesday. SVB Leerink lowered shares of Cerner from an “outperform” rating to a “market perform” rating and upped their price objective for the company from $88.00 to $95.00 in a report on Monday. Finally, Robert W. Baird initiated coverage on shares of Cerner in a report on Tuesday, November 16th. They issued a “neutral” rating and a $82.00 price objective for the company. One research analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, eight have assigned a hold rating and four have given a buy rating to the stock. According to MarketBeat, Cerner presently has a consensus rating of “Hold” and an average target price of $86.75.
Shares of CERN opened at $91.79 on Thursday. The business’s 50 day moving average is $75.05 and its two-hundred day moving average is $76.33. Cerner has a 52-week low of $67.96 and a 52-week high of $92.37. The firm has a market cap of $27.01 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 53.37, a PEG ratio of 2.45 and a beta of 0.78. The company has a quick ratio of 1.56, a current ratio of 1.57 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.42.
Cerner (NASDAQ:CERN) last announced its earnings results on Thursday, October 28th. The company reported $0.86 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating the Zacks’ consensus estimate of $0.82 by $0.04. Cerner had a return on equity of 19.54% and a net margin of 9.15%. The company had revenue of $1.47 billion for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $1.45 billion. During the same period in the prior year, the company posted $0.60 EPS. Cerner’s quarterly revenue was up 7.2% on a year-over-year basis. On average, equities analysts expect that Cerner will post 2.75 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.
The business also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Tuesday, January 11th. Shareholders of record on Monday, December 27th will be given a $0.27 dividend. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Thursday, December 23rd. This is a positive change from Cerner’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.22. This represents a $1.08 annualized dividend and a yield of 1.18%. Cerner’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is currently 51.16%.
A number of hedge funds and other institutional investors have recently modified their holdings of CERN. BlackRock Inc. grew its stake in shares of Cerner by 9.2% in the third quarter. BlackRock Inc. now owns 26,150,047 shares of the company’s stock worth $1,844,101,000 after purchasing an additional 2,198,317 shares in the last quarter. State Street Corp boosted its position in shares of Cerner by 0.9% in the 2nd quarter. State Street Corp now owns 13,827,894 shares of the company’s stock valued at $1,083,726,000 after purchasing an additional 122,658 shares during the period. Macquarie Group Ltd. lifted its stake in Cerner by 0.3% in the 3rd quarter. Macquarie Group Ltd. now owns 9,740,773 shares of the company’s stock worth $686,919,000 after acquiring an additional 25,850 shares in the last quarter. American Century Companies Inc. lifted its stake in Cerner by 8.3% in the 3rd quarter. American Century Companies Inc. now owns 8,522,203 shares of the company’s stock worth $600,986,000 after acquiring an additional 651,326 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Geode Capital Management LLC lifted its stake in Cerner by 10.3% in the 3rd quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC now owns 6,662,774 shares of the company’s stock worth $469,000,000 after acquiring an additional 623,012 shares in the last quarter. 85.74% of the stock is currently owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.
About Cerner
Cerner Corp. designs, develops, markets, installs, hosts and supports health care information technology, health care devices, hardware and content solutions for health care organizations and consumers. The company also provides value-added services, including implementation and training, remote hosting, operational management services, revenue cycle services, support and maintenance, health care data analysis, clinical process optimization, transaction processing, employee wellness programs and third party administrator services for employer-based health plans.