BlackRock Fund Advisors recently announced the acquisition of new stake in Certara Inc. (NASDAQ:CERT). The institutional investor has increased its shareholding in the Healthcare company by 197.58% to 13.51 million shares with purchase of 8.97 million shares. This fresh investment now brings its stake to 8.47% valued currently at $326.46 million. In addition, The Vanguard Group, Inc. raised its holdings by 0.2 million to 10.7 million shares. And William Blair Investment Manageme has lifted its position by 4.25% or 0.29 million shares – to 7.19 million shares.
With over 1.45 million Certara Inc. (CERT) shares trading Monday and a closing price of $20.96 on the day, the dollar volume was approximately $30.42 million. The shares have shown a positive half year performance of 48.02% and its price on 05/22/23 gained nearly 4.28%. Currently, there are 158.18M common shares owned by the public and among those 152.81M 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: 10 analysts who have offered their price forecasts for CERT have a consensus price objective of $24.83. The analysts have set the share’s price value over the next 12 months at a high of $28.00 and a low of $20.00. The average price target is 15.59% above its recent price level and a downside to the estimated low will see the stock lose -4.8% over that period. But an upside of 25.14% will see the stock hit the forecast high price target while median target price for the stock is $25.00.
The top 3 mutual fund holders in Certara Inc. are iShares Core S&P Small Cap ETF, Vanguard Total Stock Market ETF, and ClearBridge Small Cap Growth Fund. iShares Core S&P Small Cap ETF owns 7.64 million shares of the company’s stock, all valued at over $184.77 million. The company sold 10438.0 shares recently to bring their total holdings to about 4.79% of the shares outstanding. Vanguard Total Stock Market ETF sold -0.2 million shares to see its total holdings shrink to 3.49 million shares valued at over $84.25 million and representing 2.19% of the shares outstanding. ClearBridge Small Cap Growth Fund bought 0.4 million shares to bring its total holdings to over 3.06 million shares at a value of $74.0 million. ClearBridge Small Cap Growth Fund now owns shares totaling to 1.92% of the shares outstanding.
Shares of Certara Inc. (NASDAQ: CERT) opened at $20.14, up $0.04 from a prior closing price of $20.10. However, the script later moved the day high at 21.06, up 4.28%. The company’s stock has a 5-day price change of 2.85% and 12.45% over the past three months. CERT shares are trading 30.43% year to date (YTD), with the 12-month market performance up to 6.67% higher. It has a 12-month low price of $10.60 and touched a high of $24.96 over the same period. CERT has an average intraday trading volume of 1.57 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 -5.76%, -8.07%, and 16.95% respectively.
Institutional ownership of Certara Inc. (NASDAQ: CERT) shares accounts for 87.40% of the company’s 158.18M shares outstanding. Mutual fund holders own 44.51%, while other institutional holders and individual stakeholders account for 46.95% and 20.50% respectively.
It has a market capitalization of $3.30B. The stock’s trailing 12-month PE ratio is 238.18, while the earnings-per-share (ttm) stands at $0.09. The company has a PEG of 13.22 and a Quick Ratio of 3.70 with the debt-to-equity ratio at 0.27. Price movements for the stock have been influenced by the stock’s volatility, which stands at 3.46% over the week and 3.62% over the month.
Analysts forecast that Certara Inc. (CERT) will achieve an EPS of $0.13 for the current quarter, $0.13 for the next quarter and $0.62 for 2024. The lowest estimate earnings-per-share for the quarter is $0.12 while analysts give the company a high EPS estimate of $0.14. Comparatively, EPS for the current quarter was $0.09 a year ago. Earnings per share for the fiscal year are expected to increase by 204.40%, and 20.19% over the next financial year.
If you are looking to buy this stock, then you may note that the average analyst recommendation by 10 brokerage firm advisors rate Certara Inc. (CERT) as a “Strong Buy” at a consensus score of 1.80. Specifically, 7 Wall Street analysts polled rate the stock as a buy, while 3 of the 10 advise that investors “hold,” and 0 rated it as a “Sell.”
