Edwards Lifesciences (NYSE:EW) Shares Gap Down After Analyst Downgrade

Shares of Edwards Lifesciences Co. (NYSE:EW) gapped down before the market opened on Friday after Canaccord Genuity Group lowered their price target on the stock from $66.00 to $63.00. The stock had previously closed at $70.35, but opened at $68.88. Canaccord Genuity Group currently has a hold rating on the stock. Edwards Lifesciences shares last traded at $68.83, with a volume of 894,821 shares.

Several other brokerages have also issued reports on EW. Piper Sandler dropped their price objective on Edwards Lifesciences from $73.00 to $70.00 and set a “neutral” rating on the stock in a report on Friday. Evercore ISI lowered their price target on Edwards Lifesciences from $76.00 to $70.00 and set an “in-line” rating on the stock in a report on Tuesday, October 1st. Stifel Nicolaus lowered their price target on Edwards Lifesciences from $85.00 to $70.00 and set a “hold” rating on the stock in a report on Thursday, July 25th. Barclays lowered their price target on Edwards Lifesciences from $90.00 to $80.00 and set an “overweight” rating on the stock in a report on Monday, September 9th. Finally, Daiwa Capital Markets raised Edwards Lifesciences from a “neutral” rating to an “outperform” rating in a report on Wednesday, July 31st. Fifteen equities research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, ten have assigned a buy rating and one has issued a strong buy rating to the stock. According to MarketBeat, the stock has an average rating of “Hold” and an average target price of $75.67.

Insider Activity

In other news, VP Donald E. Bobo, Jr. sold 5,000 shares of Edwards Lifesciences stock in a transaction that occurred on Wednesday, August 14th. The shares were sold at an average price of $66.08, for a total transaction of $330,400.00. Following the completion of the sale, the vice president now directly owns 46,936 shares in the company, valued at approximately $3,101,530.88. This trade represents a 0.00 % decrease in their position. The transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is accessible through the SEC website. In other news, VP Donald E. Bobo, Jr. sold 5,000 shares of Edwards Lifesciences stock in a transaction that occurred on Wednesday, August 14th. The shares were sold at an average price of $66.08, for a total transaction of $330,400.00. Following the completion of the sale, the vice president now directly owns 46,936 shares in the company, valued at approximately $3,101,530.88. This trade represents a 0.00 % decrease in their position. The transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is accessible through the SEC website. Also, VP Daveen Chopra sold 1,250 shares of Edwards Lifesciences stock in a transaction that occurred on Tuesday, August 20th. The stock was sold at an average price of $69.95, for a total value of $87,437.50. Following the transaction, the vice president now owns 29,333 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $2,051,843.35. This represents a 0.00 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. In the last three months, insiders sold 16,250 shares of company stock worth $1,099,238. Company insiders own 1.29% of the company’s stock.

Institutional Investors Weigh In On Edwards Lifesciences

A number of institutional investors and hedge funds have recently bought and sold shares of the stock. Vanguard Group Inc. lifted its stake in Edwards Lifesciences by 1.1% in the 1st quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 52,964,394 shares of the medical research company’s stock valued at $5,061,277,000 after buying an additional 600,994 shares in the last quarter. Bank of New York Mellon Corp raised its holdings in Edwards Lifesciences by 4.3% in the 2nd quarter. Bank of New York Mellon Corp now owns 19,782,909 shares of the medical research company’s stock valued at $1,827,347,000 after acquiring an additional 809,605 shares during the last quarter. Price T Rowe Associates Inc. MD raised its holdings in Edwards Lifesciences by 57.9% in the 1st quarter. Price T Rowe Associates Inc. MD now owns 6,516,260 shares of the medical research company’s stock valued at $622,695,000 after acquiring an additional 2,390,137 shares during the last quarter. Champlain Investment Partners LLC raised its holdings in Edwards Lifesciences by 3.1% in the 1st quarter. Champlain Investment Partners LLC now owns 2,964,168 shares of the medical research company’s stock valued at $283,256,000 after acquiring an additional 88,205 shares during the last quarter. Finally, AustralianSuper Pty Ltd raised its holdings in Edwards Lifesciences by 14.2% in the 2nd quarter. AustralianSuper Pty Ltd now owns 2,778,812 shares of the medical research company’s stock valued at $256,679,000 after acquiring an additional 344,465 shares during the last quarter. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 79.46% of the company’s stock.

Edwards Lifesciences Price Performance

The company has a fifty day simple moving average of $68.08 and a two-hundred day simple moving average of $78.65. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.08, a quick ratio of 2.87 and a current ratio of 3.71. The company has a market capitalization of $41.81 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 29.91, a P/E/G ratio of 2.83 and a beta of 1.13.

Edwards Lifesciences (NYSE:EW) last issued its quarterly earnings results on Thursday, October 24th. The medical research company reported $0.67 earnings per share for the quarter, meeting the consensus estimate of $0.67. The company had revenue of $1.35 billion during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $1.57 billion. Edwards Lifesciences had a return on equity of 22.35% and a net margin of 24.55%. Edwards Lifesciences’s revenue was up 8.9% on a year-over-year basis. During the same period in the previous year, the firm posted $0.59 EPS. As a group, research analysts anticipate that Edwards Lifesciences Co. will post 2.71 earnings per share for the current year.

About Edwards Lifesciences

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.