Laboratory Co. of America Holdings (NYSE:LH) Stake Reduced by Stephens Inc. AR

Stephens Inc. AR reduced its stake in shares of Laboratory Co. of America Holdings (NYSE:LH – Get Rating) by 14.7% in the first quarter, according to the company in its most recent 13F filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). The fund owned 2,449 shares of the medical research company’s stock after selling 423 shares during the quarter. Stephens Inc. AR’s holdings in Laboratory Co. of America were worth $646,000 at the end of the most recent quarter.

A number of other institutional investors have also recently added to or reduced their stakes in LH. BlackRock Inc. grew its stake in shares of Laboratory Co. of America by 6.8% in the fourth quarter. BlackRock Inc. now owns 8,274,410 shares of the medical research company’s stock worth $2,599,903,000 after purchasing an additional 524,578 shares in the last quarter. State Street Corp grew its stake in shares of Laboratory Co. of America by 2.7% in the fourth quarter. State Street Corp now owns 4,423,702 shares of the medical research company’s stock worth $1,389,971,000 after purchasing an additional 117,371 shares in the last quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC boosted its stake in Laboratory Co. of America by 2.3% during the fourth quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC now owns 1,876,827 shares of the medical research company’s stock valued at $588,268,000 after buying an additional 41,781 shares in the last quarter. Alliancebernstein L.P. boosted its stake in Laboratory Co. of America by 11.5% during the fourth quarter. Alliancebernstein L.P. now owns 1,488,164 shares of the medical research company’s stock valued at $467,596,000 after buying an additional 152,947 shares in the last quarter. Finally, JPMorgan Chase & Co. boosted its stake in Laboratory Co. of America by 2.5% during the fourth quarter. JPMorgan Chase & Co. now owns 1,280,094 shares of the medical research company’s stock valued at $402,218,000 after buying an additional 30,756 shares in the last quarter. 92.02% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors.

Wall Street Analyst Weigh In

Several research analysts recently weighed in on the company. Mizuho decreased their target price on Laboratory Co. of America from $323.00 to $296.00 and set a “maintains” rating for the company in a research note on Friday, July 29th. Truist Financial decreased their target price on Laboratory Co. of America from $350.00 to $320.00 in a research note on Friday, April 29th. Deutsche Bank Aktiengesellschaft decreased their target price on Laboratory Co. of America from $294.00 to $265.00 in a research note on Tuesday, May 3rd. Wells Fargo & Company decreased their target price on Laboratory Co. of America from $290.00 to $235.00 and set an “equal weight” rating for the company in a research note on Monday, April 25th. Finally, Credit Suisse Group reduced their target price on Laboratory Co. of America from $312.00 to $308.00 and set an “outperform” rating for the company in a report on Monday. Two research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and three have assigned a buy rating to the stock. According to data from MarketBeat, the stock has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $296.29.

Laboratory Co. of America Trading Down 2.1 %

Shares of NYSE LH opened at $252.49 on Wednesday. Laboratory Co. of America Holdings has a 12 month low of $212.40 and a 12 month high of $317.17. The company has a market cap of $23.41 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 12.08 and a beta of 1.03. The company has a quick ratio of 1.74, a current ratio of 1.90 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.52. The business has a fifty day simple moving average of $241.03 and a 200-day simple moving average of $256.74.

Laboratory Co. of America (NYSE:LH – Get Rating) last announced its quarterly earnings data on Thursday, July 28th. The medical research company reported $4.95 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $4.60 by $0.35. The firm had revenue of $3.70 billion during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $3.76 billion. Laboratory Co. of America had a return on equity of 22.39% and a net margin of 12.67%. The business’s revenue for the quarter was down 3.7% on a year-over-year basis. During the same period in the prior year, the business earned $6.13 EPS. Sell-side analysts predict that Laboratory Co. of America Holdings will post 19.89 EPS for the current year.

Laboratory Co. of America Announces Dividend

The firm also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Friday, September 9th. Investors of record on Thursday, August 18th will be paid a $0.72 dividend. This represents a $2.88 annualized dividend and a yield of 1.14%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Wednesday, August 17th. Laboratory Co. of America’s dividend payout ratio is currently 13.78%.

Laboratory Co. of America Profile

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Laboratory Corporation of America Holdings operates as an independent clinical laboratory company worldwide. It operates in two segments, Labcorp Diagnostics (Dx) and Labcorp Drug Development (DD). It offers various tests, such as blood chemistry analyses, urinalyses, blood cell counts, thyroid tests, Pap tests, hemoglobin A1C and vitamin D products, prostate-specific antigens, tests for sexually transmitted diseases, hepatitis C tests, microbiology cultures and procedures, and alcohol and other substance-abuse tests.

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