Great West Life Assurance Co. Can Cuts Stock Holdings in AbbVie Inc. (NYSE:ABBV)

Great West Life Assurance Co. Can reduced its position in shares of AbbVie Inc. (NYSE:ABBV) by 1.7% in the 2nd quarter, according to its most recent disclosure with the Securities & Exchange Commission. The institutional investor owned 1,424,331 shares of the company’s stock after selling 24,205 shares during the period. Great West Life Assurance Co. Can owned approximately 0.08% of AbbVie worth $192,814,000 as of its most recent SEC filing.

Several other large investors have also recently added to or reduced their stakes in ABBV. Retirement Income Solutions Inc purchased a new position in AbbVie in the first quarter valued at about $204,000. Ergoteles LLC increased its stake in shares of AbbVie by 17.8% during the 1st quarter. Ergoteles LLC now owns 5,605 shares of the company’s stock worth $909,000 after purchasing an additional 847 shares in the last quarter. First Western Trust Bank purchased a new position in shares of AbbVie during the 1st quarter worth approximately $1,150,000. Wsfs Capital Management LLC purchased a new position in shares of AbbVie during the 1st quarter worth approximately $562,000. Finally, Bridgewater Associates LP increased its stake in shares of AbbVie by 80.4% during the 1st quarter. Bridgewater Associates LP now owns 75,516 shares of the company’s stock worth $12,242,000 after purchasing an additional 33,661 shares in the last quarter. 67.86% of the stock is owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

Wall Street Analyst Weigh In

A number of brokerages have recently weighed in on ABBV. Barclays raised shares of AbbVie from an “equal weight” rating to an “overweight” rating and raised their price objective for the stock from $160.00 to $170.00 in a research note on Monday, October 30th. Raymond James began coverage on shares of AbbVie in a research note on Thursday, September 28th. They set an “outperform” rating and a $177.00 price objective for the company. StockNews.com assumed coverage on shares of AbbVie in a research note on Thursday, October 5th. They set a “strong-buy” rating for the company. UBS Group decreased their target price on shares of AbbVie from $157.00 to $150.00 and set a “neutral” rating on the stock in a research report on Friday, October 20th. Finally, TheStreet upgraded shares of AbbVie from a “c+” rating to a “b” rating in a research report on Monday, August 28th. Eight investment analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, eight have given a buy rating and one has assigned a strong buy rating to the company’s stock. Based on data from MarketBeat, the stock presently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus target price of $167.69.

AbbVie Trading Up 0.0 %

Shares of ABBV traded up $0.02 during mid-day trading on Friday, reaching $138.30. The company had a trading volume of 4,332,349 shares, compared to its average volume of 5,528,588. The company has a current ratio of 0.96, a quick ratio of 0.84 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 4.59. The stock has a market cap of $244.17 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 37.89, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 2.45 and a beta of 0.51. The firm has a fifty day simple moving average of $146.58 and a 200-day simple moving average of $143.98. AbbVie Inc. has a fifty-two week low of $130.96 and a fifty-two week high of $168.11.

AbbVie (NYSE:ABBV) last posted its earnings results on Friday, October 27th. The company reported $2.95 earnings per share for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $2.86 by $0.09. The business had revenue of $13.93 billion for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $13.72 billion. AbbVie had a net margin of 11.81% and a return on equity of 152.70%. The business’s quarterly revenue was down 6.0% on a year-over-year basis. During the same quarter in the previous year, the business posted $3.66 EPS. On average, sell-side analysts anticipate that AbbVie Inc. will post 11.24 EPS for the current fiscal year.

AbbVie Increases Dividend

The firm also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Thursday, February 15th. Investors of record on Tuesday, January 16th will be issued a dividend of $1.55 per share. This is a positive change from AbbVie’s previous quarterly dividend of $1.48. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Friday, January 12th. This represents a $6.20 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 4.48%. AbbVie’s payout ratio is presently 169.86%.

AbbVie Profile

AbbVie Inc discovers, develops, manufactures, and sells pharmaceuticals worldwide. The company offers Humira, a therapy administered as an injection for autoimmune, intestinal Behçet's diseases, and pyoderma gangrenosum; Skyrizi to treat moderate to severe plaque psoriasis, psoriatic disease, and Crohn's disease; Rinvoq, a JAK inhibitor to treat rheumatoid and psoriatic arthritis, ankylosing spondylitis, atopic dermatitis, axial spondyloarthropathy, and ulcerative colitis; Imbruvica for the treatment of adult patients with blood cancers; and Venclexta/Venclyxto to treat hematological malignancies.