BlackRock Fund Advisors has recently announced that it has increased stake in Merit Medical Systems Inc. (NASDAQ:MMSI) by 7.05%. After grabbing 8.49 million shares, the institutional investor is now in possession of 0.56 million shares of the Healthcare Company. The new investment brought the stake of investor firm to 14.92% having worth around $599.63 million. Moreover, The Vanguard Group, Inc. increased its share by 0.37 million to have a control over 6.56 million shares. And William Blair Investment Manageme raised its holdings to 0.84 million shares by acquiring 4.11 million shares or 7.22% of the stake.
Merit Medical Systems Inc. (MMSI) concluded trading on 01/18/23 at a closing price of $69.84, with 0.2 million shares of worth about $13.82 million changed hands on the day. Half year performance of the stock remained positive as price took a surge of 29.79% during that period and on Wednesday the price saw a loss of about -0.19%. Currently the company’s common shares owned by public are about 56.84M shares, out of which, 55.62M shares are available for trading.
Will You Miss Out On This Growth Stock Boom?
A new megatrend in the fintech market is well underway. Mobile payments are projected to boom into a massive $12 trillion market by 2028. According to Motley Fool this growth stock could "deliver huge returns." Not only in the immediate future but also over the next decade. Especially since the man behind this company is a serial entrepreneur who has been wildly successful over the years.
And this is just one of our
5 Best Growth Stocks To Own For 2023.
Sponsored
A deeper look into what the analysts at Wall Street are thinking about the price target of this stock provides us with the following: 8 analysts are covering the MMSI stock and their offered price forecasts bring an average price target of $75.13. Over the next 12 months, analysts forecasted that the stock’s price could jump as high as $88.00 and could fall to a lowest price of $71.00. The stock’s current price level is 7.03% above of average price target set by the analysts, while a rise to estimated low would result in gain of 1.63% for the stock. However, touching the estimated high of $88.00 would mean a gain of 20.64% for the stock.
According to filings with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), insiders took part in trade of the company’s stock for 42 times over the past 12 months. They bought 216,700 shares in 25 of the transactions. In 17 selling transactions, insiders dumped 121,770 shares.
iShares Core S&P Small Cap ETF, Vanguard Total Stock Market Index, and Vanguard Small Cap Index Fund are the top 3 mutual funds which are holding stakes in Merit Medical Systems Inc. iShares Core S&P Small Cap ETF is currently holding 4.2 million shares of worth totaling $296.87 million. The company recently came selling 10086.0 shares which brought its stake up to 7.39% of the company’s outstanding shares. Vanguard Total Stock Market Index bought 2478.0 shares, after which its hold over company’s outstanding shares expand to 3.00%, leaving 1.71 million shares with the mutual fund that have a worth of about $120.42 million. Vanguard Small Cap Index Fund, after buying 1.47 million shares, have now control over 2.58% of the stake in the company. It holds 2220.0 shares of worth $103.6 million.
However, the stock later moved at a day high price of 70.87, or with a loss of -0.19%. Stock saw a price change of 0.76% in past 5 days and over the past one month there was a price change of -1.95%. Year-to-date (YTD), MMSI shares are showing a performance of -1.10% which increased to 20.81% when we look at its performance for past 12 months. Over the period of past 52 weeks, stock dropped to lowest price of $50.46 but also hit the highest price of $76.14 during that period. The average intraday trading volume for Merit Medical Systems Inc. shares is 277.69K. The stock is currently trading -0.34% below its 20-day simple moving average (SMA20), while that difference is down -0.89% for SMA50 and it goes to 12.30% higher than SMA200.
BlackRock Fund Advisors acquired 8.49 million shares of Merit Medical Systems Inc. having value of about $599.63 million. Data submitted at the U.S SEC by BlackRock Fund Advisors revealed that the firm now holds 0.56 million shares in the company valued at close to $39029245.92, or have control over 7.05% stake in the company. Merit Medical Systems Inc. (NASDAQ: MMSI) currently have 56.84M outstanding shares and institutions hold larger chunk of about 97.90% of that. Holding of mutual funds in the company is about 4.24% while other institutional holders and individual stake holders have control over 59.55% and 37.35% of the stake respectively.
The stock has a current market capitalization of $3.88B and its 3Y-monthly beta is at 1.00. PE ratio of stock for trailing 12 months is 65.15, while it has posted earnings per share of $1.07 in the same period. Its PEG reads 5.92 and has Quick Ratio of 1.20 while making debt-to-equity ratio of 0.20. Volatility of a stock is a metric used to know how much the price of that stock is under influence and for MMSI, volatility over the week remained 2.42% while standing at 2.36% over the month.
Analysts are in expectations that Merit Medical Systems Inc. (MMSI) stock would likely to be making an EPS of $0.67 in the current quarter, while forecast for next quarter EPS is $0.58 and it is $2.83 for next year. For the current quarter EPS, analysts have given the company a lowest target $0.65 which is $0.69 at the higher side of the target for the same. When we compare those targets with actual EPS, we find that company posted an EPS of $0.71 in the same quarter a year ago. Stock’s fiscal year EPS is expected to rise by 575.80% while it is estimated to increase by 9.74% in next year. EPS is likely to shrink at an annualized rate of 11.00% for next 5-years, compared to annual growth of 13.50% made by the stock over the past 5-years.
Analysts at 8 brokerage firms have issued recommendations for the Merit Medical Systems Inc. (MMSI)’s stock and average of those rates the stock at a “Strong Buy” and assign it a score of 1.90. Out of those 8 Wall Street analysts, 5 recommended a “Buy” rating, while 2 were in favor recommending the stock as a “Hold” and 0 analyst recommended the stock as “Sell”.
Digging deeper we find that several firms have released their research notes about the support levels of the stock. Most recent of them is a note released by Canaccord Genuity on December 20, 2022 offering a Hold rating for the stock and assigned a target price range of between $73 and $72 to it. Coverage by Needham stated Merit Medical Systems Inc. (MMSI) stock as a Buy in their note to investors on January 05, 2021, suggesting a price target of $65 for the stock. Stock get an Outperform rating from Raymond James on February 03, 2020.
