Integrity Alliance LLC. Takes $348,000 Position in Novartis AG $NVS

Integrity Alliance LLC. bought a new stake in shares of Novartis AG (NYSE:NVS) in the 1st quarter, HoldingsChannel.com reports. The firm bought 3,124 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $348,000.

Several other institutional investors and hedge funds also recently made changes to their positions in NVS. Goldman Sachs Group Inc. lifted its stake in Novartis by 60.3% during the first quarter. Goldman Sachs Group Inc. now owns 3,660,485 shares of the company’s stock worth $408,071,000 after purchasing an additional 1,377,252 shares during the last quarter. New Vernon Capital Holdings II LLC lifted its stake in Novartis by 12,664.1% during the first quarter. New Vernon Capital Holdings II LLC now owns 1,383,244 shares of the company’s stock worth $154,204,000 after purchasing an additional 1,372,407 shares during the last quarter. GAMMA Investing LLC lifted its stake in Novartis by 14,376.4% during the first quarter. GAMMA Investing LLC now owns 727,296 shares of the company’s stock worth $81,079,000 after purchasing an additional 722,272 shares during the last quarter. Dimensional Fund Advisors LP lifted its stake in Novartis by 5.2% during the first quarter. Dimensional Fund Advisors LP now owns 8,606,724 shares of the company’s stock worth $959,535,000 after purchasing an additional 422,869 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Cookson Peirce & Co. Inc. bought a new position in Novartis during the first quarter worth $24,763,000. 13.12% of the stock is currently owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

NVS has been the topic of a number of recent research reports. Wall Street Zen cut Novartis from a “strong-buy” rating to a “buy” rating in a research note on Friday, August 22nd. The Goldman Sachs Group reiterated a “sell” rating and issued a $118.00 target price (down from $119.00) on shares of Novartis in a research note on Friday. Deutsche Bank Aktiengesellschaft reiterated a “buy” rating on shares of Novartis in a research note on Thursday, August 21st. Finally, Morgan Stanley upgraded Novartis from an “underweight” rating to an “equal weight” rating and set a $123.00 target price on the stock in a research note on Friday, August 8th. One analyst has rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, one has given a Buy rating, four have assigned a Hold rating and three have given a Sell rating to the stock. According to MarketBeat.com, the company currently has an average rating of “Hold” and a consensus target price of $120.33.

Novartis Stock Performance

NVS stock opened at $124.12 on Friday. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.53, a quick ratio of 0.62 and a current ratio of 0.82. The stock has a market capitalization of $262.19 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 18.07, a PEG ratio of 1.79 and a beta of 0.63. Novartis AG has a 1 year low of $96.06 and a 1 year high of $130.46. The stock’s fifty day moving average is $121.72 and its two-hundred day moving average is $115.73.

Novartis (NYSE:NVS) last issued its quarterly earnings results on Thursday, July 17th. The company reported $2.42 EPS for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $2.38 by $0.04. The company had revenue of $14.05 billion for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $13.94 billion. Novartis had a return on equity of 41.08% and a net margin of 25.64%.The company’s quarterly revenue was up 12.3% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same period last year, the company earned $1.97 earnings per share. On average, research analysts predict that Novartis AG will post 8.45 EPS for the current year.

About Novartis

Novartis AG engages in the research, development, manufacture, and marketing of healthcare products in Switzerland and internationally. The company offers prescription medicines for patients and physicians. It focuses on therapeutic areas, such as cardiovascular, renal and metabolic, immunology, neuroscience, and oncology, as well as ophthalmology and hematology.