Edwards Lifesciences (NYSE:EW) Stock Rating Upgraded by Bank of America

Bank of America upgraded shares of Edwards Lifesciences (NYSE:EW) from a neutral rating to a buy rating in a research note released on Monday, MarketBeat Ratings reports. They currently have $90.00 target price on the medical research company’s stock, up from their previous target price of $82.00.

Other equities research analysts have also recently issued reports about the company. Stifel Nicolaus lifted their price objective on Edwards Lifesciences from $70.00 to $75.00 and gave the stock a “hold” rating in a report on Thursday, December 5th. Canaccord Genuity Group boosted their price target on Edwards Lifesciences from $63.00 to $68.00 and gave the stock a “hold” rating in a research report on Thursday, December 5th. Jefferies Financial Group downgraded Edwards Lifesciences from a “buy” rating to a “hold” rating and reduced their price objective for the company from $85.00 to $70.00 in a research note on Wednesday, September 18th. Royal Bank of Canada lifted their target price on shares of Edwards Lifesciences from $80.00 to $85.00 and gave the stock an “outperform” rating in a research note on Thursday, December 5th. Finally, Wells Fargo & Company reduced their target price on shares of Edwards Lifesciences from $90.00 to $80.00 and set an “overweight” rating for the company in a research report on Monday, September 9th. Sixteen analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and eleven have issued a buy rating to the company’s stock. According to data from MarketBeat, the stock currently has a consensus rating of “Hold” and a consensus price target of $79.40.

Edwards Lifesciences Stock Down 1.8 %

Edwards Lifesciences stock opened at $72.81 on Monday. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.06, a current ratio of 3.46 and a quick ratio of 2.89. The stock has a market capitalization of $42.94 billion, a PE ratio of 10.51, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 3.63 and a beta of 1.12. The business has a 50 day simple moving average of $69.81 and a 200-day simple moving average of $73.71. Edwards Lifesciences has a 12 month low of $58.93 and a 12 month high of $96.12.

Edwards Lifesciences (NYSE:EW) last issued its quarterly earnings results on Thursday, October 24th. The medical research company reported $0.67 EPS for the quarter, hitting the consensus estimate of $0.67. Edwards Lifesciences had a net margin of 70.82% and a return on equity of 20.76%. The company had revenue of $1.35 billion during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $1.57 billion. During the same quarter in the previous year, the firm earned $0.59 EPS. The firm’s revenue was up 8.9% compared to the same quarter last year. On average, analysts anticipate that Edwards Lifesciences will post 2.56 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Insider Buying and Selling at Edwards Lifesciences

In other news, VP Daniel J. Lippis sold 2,500 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction on Monday, December 16th. The stock was sold at an average price of $74.08, for a total transaction of $185,200.00. Following the completion of the transaction, the vice president now directly owns 23,189 shares in the company, valued at $1,717,841.12. This trade represents a 9.73 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which is available at the SEC website. Also, insider Larry L. Wood sold 25,000 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction on Tuesday, November 5th. The shares were sold at an average price of $65.91, for a total value of $1,647,750.00. Following the completion of the sale, the insider now owns 198,526 shares in the company, valued at $13,084,848.66. This represents a 11.18 % decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders sold a total of 37,500 shares of company stock worth $2,508,350 over the last three months. Insiders own 1.29% of the company’s stock.

Institutional Inflows and Outflows

A number of institutional investors have recently made changes to their positions in EW. Zurcher Kantonalbank Zurich Cantonalbank boosted its position in Edwards Lifesciences by 9.2% in the 3rd quarter. Zurcher Kantonalbank Zurich Cantonalbank now owns 478,418 shares of the medical research company’s stock valued at $31,571,000 after buying an additional 40,348 shares during the period. AIA Group Ltd boosted its holdings in Edwards Lifesciences by 91.7% in the third quarter. AIA Group Ltd now owns 749,524 shares of the medical research company’s stock valued at $49,461,000 after purchasing an additional 358,556 shares during the period. RiverPark Advisors LLC grew its stake in Edwards Lifesciences by 58.1% during the 3rd quarter. RiverPark Advisors LLC now owns 20,639 shares of the medical research company’s stock worth $1,362,000 after purchasing an additional 7,583 shares in the last quarter. Oppenheimer & Co. Inc. increased its holdings in Edwards Lifesciences by 40.0% during the 2nd quarter. Oppenheimer & Co. Inc. now owns 36,745 shares of the medical research company’s stock worth $3,394,000 after purchasing an additional 10,492 shares during the period. Finally, Banque Cantonale Vaudoise raised its position in Edwards Lifesciences by 46.9% in the 3rd quarter. Banque Cantonale Vaudoise now owns 81,111 shares of the medical research company’s stock valued at $5,353,000 after purchasing an additional 25,886 shares in the last quarter. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 79.46% of the company’s stock.

Edwards Lifesciences Company Profile

Edwards Lifesciences Corporation provides products and technologies for structural heart disease and critical care monitoring in the United States, Europe, Japan, and internationally. It offers transcatheter heart valve replacement products for the minimally invasive replacement of aortic heart valves under the Edwards SAPIEN family of valves system; and transcatheter heart valve repair and replacement products to treat mitral and tricuspid valve diseases under the PASCAL PRECISION and Cardioband names.