The Vanguard Group, Inc. recently announced the acquisition of new stake in Natera Inc. (NASDAQ:NTRA). The institutional investor has increased its shareholding in the Healthcare company by 19.70% to 9.79 million shares with purchase of 1.61 million shares. This fresh investment now brings its stake to 8.98% valued currently at $475.51 million. In addition, Fred Alger Management LLC raised its holdings by 0.3 million to 8.61 million shares. And BlackRock Fund Advisors has lifted its position by 21.69% or 0.85 million shares – to 4.76 million shares.
With over 2.19 million Natera Inc. (NTRA) shares trading Monday and a closing price of $55.18 on the day, the dollar volume was approximately $120.66 million. The shares have shown a positive half year performance of 4.27% and its price on 03/13/23 gained nearly 1.94%. Currently, there are 113.29M common shares owned by the public and among those 109.17M shares have been available to trade.
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The analysts have set the share’s price value over the next 12 months at a high of $117.00 and a low of $29.00. The average price target is 26.78% above its recent price level and a downside to the estimated low will see the stock lose -90.28% over that period. But an upside of 52.84% will see the stock hit the forecast high price target while median target price for the stock is $71.50.
Insiders at the company have transacted a total of 195 times over the past 12 months, according to data filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). 120 of these insider trades were purchases, accounting for 1,006,541 shares. Insider sales of the common stock occurred on 75 occasions, with total insider shares sold totaling 257,992 shares.
The top 3 mutual fund holders in Natera Inc. are Vanguard Total Stock Market Index, Government Pension Fund – Global, and Vanguard Small Cap Index Fund. Vanguard Total Stock Market Index owns 3.18 million shares of the company’s stock, all valued at over $154.35 million. The company bought an additional 24036.0 shares recently to bring their total holdings to about 2.92% of the shares outstanding. Government Pension Fund – Global bought 1.89 million shares to see its total holdings expand to 2.78 million shares valued at over $134.99 million and representing 2.55% of the shares outstanding. Vanguard Small Cap Index Fund bought 14617.0 shares to bring its total holdings to over 2.68 million shares at a value of $130.28 million. Vanguard Small Cap Index Fund now owns shares totaling to 2.46% of the shares outstanding.
Shares of Natera Inc. (NASDAQ: NTRA) opened at $53.34, down -$0.79 from a prior closing price of $54.13. However, the script later moved the day high at 56.25, up 1.94%. The company’s stock has a 5-day price change of -2.73% and 42.36% over the past three months. NTRA shares are trading 37.37% year to date (YTD), with the 12-month market performance up to 29.50% higher. It has a 12-month low price of $27.35 and touched a high of $59.75 over the same period. NTRA has an average intraday trading volume of 1.50 million shares. The stock is trading above its simple moving averages at the SMA20, SMA50, and SMA200, as the current price level is off by 9.48%, 22.35%, and 26.49% respectively.
Institutional ownership of Natera Inc. (NASDAQ: NTRA) shares accounts for 87.10% of the company’s 113.29M shares outstanding. Mutual fund holders own 44.99%, while other institutional holders and individual stakeholders account for 48.98% and 20.24% respectively.
It has a market capitalization of $6.64B and a beta (3y monthly) value of 1.18. The earnings-per-share (ttm) stands at -$5.57. Price movements for the stock have been influenced by the stock’s volatility, which stands at 5.89% over the week and 5.52% over the month.
Analysts forecast that Natera Inc. (NTRA) will achieve an EPS of -$1.43 for the current quarter, -$1.26 for the next quarter and -$4.64 for 2023. The lowest estimate earnings-per-share for the quarter is -$1.58 while analysts give the company a high EPS estimate of -$1.3. Comparatively, EPS for the current quarter was -$1.48 a year ago. Earnings per share for the fiscal year are expected to decrease by -6.90%, and 33.70% over the next financial year.
Looking at the support for the NTRA, a number of firms have released research notes about the stock. Raymond James stated their Outperform rating for the stock in a research note on January 18, 2023, with the firm’s price target at $58. Credit Suisse coverage for the Natera Inc. (NTRA) stock in a research note released on August 25, 2022 offered a Outperform rating with a price target of $70. Stephens was of a view on April 25, 2022 that the stock is Overweight, while Goldman gave the stock Buy rating on March 08, 2022, issuing a price target of $90. Piper Sandler on their part issued Overweight rating on January 06, 2022.
