Principal Financial Group Inc. Buys 1,142 Shares of Regeneron Pharmaceuticals, Inc. $REGN

Principal Financial Group Inc. raised its holdings in Regeneron Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (NASDAQ:REGN) by 1.0% during the fourth quarter, according to the company in its most recent Form 13F filing with the SEC. The fund owned 119,625 shares of the biopharmaceutical company’s stock after acquiring an additional 1,142 shares during the quarter. Principal Financial Group Inc. owned about 0.11% of Regeneron Pharmaceuticals worth $92,335,000 as of its most recent SEC filing.

Other hedge funds and other institutional investors have also recently bought and sold shares of the company. WPG Advisers LLC raised its holdings in Regeneron Pharmaceuticals by 312.5% in the fourth quarter. WPG Advisers LLC now owns 33 shares of the biopharmaceutical company’s stock worth $25,000 after purchasing an additional 25 shares during the period. Board of the Pension Protection Fund bought a new position in shares of Regeneron Pharmaceuticals in the 4th quarter valued at about $31,000. Torren Management LLC bought a new stake in shares of Regeneron Pharmaceuticals during the 4th quarter worth about $38,000. FNY Investment Advisers LLC acquired a new stake in Regeneron Pharmaceuticals in the 4th quarter worth about $38,000. Finally, Oakworth Capital Inc. raised its stake in Regeneron Pharmaceuticals by 124.0% in the 4th quarter. Oakworth Capital Inc. now owns 56 shares of the biopharmaceutical company’s stock worth $43,000 after purchasing an additional 31 shares in the last quarter. 83.31% of the stock is owned by institutional investors.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

REGN has been the subject of several analyst reports. Cantor Fitzgerald reiterated an “overweight” rating and issued a $800.00 price objective on shares of Regeneron Pharmaceuticals in a research note on Thursday, April 23rd. Oppenheimer restated an “outperform” rating and issued a $865.00 target price (up from $750.00) on shares of Regeneron Pharmaceuticals in a research report on Monday, February 2nd. Royal Bank Of Canada dropped their target price on shares of Regeneron Pharmaceuticals from $779.00 to $762.00 and set a “sector perform” rating for the company in a research report on Thursday, April 30th. Weiss Ratings restated a “hold (c)” rating on shares of Regeneron Pharmaceuticals in a research report on Friday, March 27th. Finally, Wall Street Zen upgraded shares of Regeneron Pharmaceuticals from a “hold” rating to a “buy” rating in a research report on Saturday, May 2nd. Two equities research analysts have rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, sixteen have issued a Buy rating and eight have assigned a Hold rating to the company. Based on data from MarketBeat, the company has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus price target of $826.59.

Regeneron Pharmaceuticals Trading Up 2.7%

REGN opened at $721.05 on Thursday. Regeneron Pharmaceuticals, Inc. has a fifty-two week low of $476.49 and a fifty-two week high of $821.11. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.06, a current ratio of 3.57 and a quick ratio of 2.96. The firm has a market capitalization of $76.23 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 17.57, a PEG ratio of 1.57 and a beta of 0.30. The company’s 50 day moving average price is $753.94 and its two-hundred day moving average price is $739.52.

Regeneron Pharmaceuticals (NASDAQ:REGN) last posted its earnings results on Wednesday, April 29th. The biopharmaceutical company reported $9.47 earnings per share for the quarter, topping analysts’ consensus estimates of $8.91 by $0.56. Regeneron Pharmaceuticals had a net margin of 29.65% and a return on equity of 13.16%. The firm had revenue of $3.61 billion for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $3.48 billion. During the same period in the previous year, the firm posted $8.22 EPS. The company’s revenue for the quarter was up 19.0% compared to the same quarter last year. As a group, research analysts predict that Regeneron Pharmaceuticals, Inc. will post 36.85 earnings per share for the current year.

Regeneron Pharmaceuticals Dividend Announcement

The company also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Thursday, June 4th. Stockholders of record on Wednesday, May 20th will be paid a $0.94 dividend. This represents a $3.76 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 0.5%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Wednesday, May 20th. Regeneron Pharmaceuticals’s dividend payout ratio is currently 9.16%.

Insider Buying and Selling

In other Regeneron Pharmaceuticals news, Director Arthur F. Ryan sold 100 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction on Friday, May 1st. The shares were sold at an average price of $705.24, for a total transaction of $70,524.00. Following the transaction, the director owned 17,503 shares in the company, valued at approximately $12,343,815.72. This represents a 0.57% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which is accessible through this hyperlink. The transaction was executed under a pre-arranged Rule 10b5-1 trading plan. Also, SVP Jason Pitofsky sold 2,036 shares of the stock in a transaction dated Monday, February 9th. The shares were sold at an average price of $778.52, for a total transaction of $1,585,066.72. Following the completion of the sale, the senior vice president owned 4,272 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $3,325,837.44. This represents a 32.28% decrease in their position. Additional details regarding this sale are available in the official SEC disclosure. Insiders have sold a total of 3,874 shares of company stock valued at $3,013,262 over the last ninety days. 6.97% of the stock is owned by corporate insiders.

Regeneron Pharmaceuticals Profile

Regeneron Pharmaceuticals, Inc (NASDAQ: REGN) is a U.S.-based biotechnology company founded in 1988 and headquartered in Tarrytown, New York. It focuses on discovering, developing, manufacturing and commercializing medicines for serious medical conditions. The company combines laboratory research, clinical development and in-house manufacturing to advance a pipeline of biologic therapies across multiple therapeutic areas.

Regeneron is known for its proprietary drug discovery technologies, including its VelocImmune platform, which is used to generate fully human monoclonal antibodies.