The Vanguard Group, Inc. recently announced the acquisition of new stake in MultiPlan Corporation (NYSE:MPLN). The institutional investor has increased its shareholding in the Healthcare company by 1.27% to 32.16 million shares with purchase of 0.4 million shares. This fresh investment now brings its stake to 5.03% valued currently at $32.48 million. In addition, BlackRock Fund Advisors raised its holdings by 0.67 million to 21.74 million shares. And Ares Management LLC has lifted its position by 61.78% or 4.83 million shares – to 12.64 million shares.
With over 2.53 million MultiPlan Corporation (MPLN) shares trading Tuesday and a closing price of $1.10 on the day, the dollar volume was approximately $2.78 million. The shares have shown a negative half year performance of -67.36% and its price on 03/14/23 gained nearly 2.80%. Currently, there are 639.12M common shares owned by the public and among those 600.11M shares have been available to trade.
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An analysis of what Wall Street brokers have to say about the expected price targets for this stock gives us this picture: 3 analysts who have offered their price forecasts for MPLN have a consensus price objective of $1.42. The analysts have set the share’s price value over the next 12 months at a high of $2.00 and a low of $1.00. The average price target is 22.54% above its recent price level and a downside to the estimated low will see the stock lose -10.0% over that period. But an upside of 45.0% will see the stock hit the forecast high price target while median target price for the stock is $1.25.
Insiders at the company have transacted a total of 23 times over the past 12 months, according to data filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). 6 of these insider trades were purchases, accounting for 146,355 shares. Insider sales of the common stock occurred on 17 occasions, with total insider shares sold totaling 4,730,937 shares.
The top 3 mutual fund holders in MultiPlan Corporation are T Rowe Price Small Cap Value Fund, Vanguard Total Stock Market Index, and Vanguard Small Cap Index Fund. T Rowe Price Small Cap Value Fund owns 14.35 million shares of the company’s stock, all valued at over $14.5 million. The company bought an additional 10.11 million shares recently to bring their total holdings to about 2.25% of the shares outstanding. Vanguard Small Cap Index Fund bought 49814.0 shares to bring its total holdings to over 9.11 million shares at a value of $9.2 million. Vanguard Small Cap Index Fund now owns shares totaling to 1.43% of the shares outstanding.
Shares of MultiPlan Corporation (NYSE: MPLN) opened at $1.11, up $0.04 from a prior closing price of $1.07. However, the script later moved the day high at 1.1200, up 2.80%. The company’s stock has a 5-day price change of -0.90% and -30.38% over the past three months. MPLN shares are trading -4.35% year to date (YTD), with the 12-month market performance down to -77.55% lower. It has a 12-month low price of $0.87 and touched a high of $6.19 over the same period. MPLN has an average intraday trading volume of 1.95 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 3.48%, -4.21%, and -62.12% respectively.
Institutional ownership of MultiPlan Corporation (NYSE: MPLN) shares accounts for 91.50% of the company’s 639.12M shares outstanding. Mutual fund holders own 23.38%, while other institutional holders and individual stakeholders account for 44.12% and 14.35% respectively.
It has a market capitalization of $703.08M. The earnings-per-share (ttm) stands at -$0.90. Price movements for the stock have been influenced by the stock’s volatility, which stands at 8.16% over the week and 10.57% over the month.
Analysts forecast that MultiPlan Corporation (MPLN) will achieve an EPS of -$0.05 for the current quarter, -$0.03 for the next quarter and $0 for 2023. The lowest estimate earnings-per-share for the quarter is -$0.08 while analysts give the company a high EPS estimate of -$0.03. Comparatively, EPS for the current quarter was $0.04 a year ago. Earnings per share for the fiscal year are expected to decrease by -672.30%, and 10.00% over the next financial year.
If you are looking to buy this stock, then you may note that the average analyst recommendation by 3 brokerage firm advisors rate MultiPlan Corporation (MPLN) as a “Moderate Buy” at a consensus score of 2.70. Specifically, 1 Wall Street analysts polled rate the stock as a buy, while 2 of the 3 advise that investors “hold,” and 0 rated it as a “Sell.”
Looking at the support for the MPLN, a number of firms have released research notes about the stock. Citigroup stated their Neutral rating for the stock in a research note on December 13, 2022, with the firm’s price target at $3-$2. Goldman coverage for the MultiPlan Corporation (MPLN) stock in a research note released on July 12, 2022 offered a Neutral rating with a price target of $6.50. Citigroup was of a view on October 04, 2021 that the stock is Buy, while B. Riley Securities gave the stock Buy rating on April 07, 2021, issuing a price target of $10. Barclays on their part issued Equal Weight rating on March 19, 2021.
