Mizuho lifts Abbott Laboratories [ABT] price estimate. Who else is bullish?

Abbott Laboratories [NYSE: ABT] gained 0.37% or 0.36 points to close at $98.55 with a heavy trading volume of 5093191 shares. The company report on March 7, 2023 that Abbott Receives FDA Clearance for First Commercially Available Lab-based Blood Test to Help Evaluate Concussion.

New test will run on Abbott’s Alinity® i laboratory instrument, complementing Abbott’s rapid i-STAT TBI Plasma test, cleared by the FDA in 2021.

Given the significant number of Alinity i instruments in use in labs across the U.S., Abbott’s lab test will make concussion testing available to more people across the country.

It opened the trading session at $99.28, the shares rose to $99.50 and dropped to $97.34, the range by which the price of stock traded the whole day. The daily chart for ABT points out that the company has recorded -9.83% loss over the past six months. However, it is still -5.68% lower than its most recent low trading price.

If we look at the average trading volume of 4.84M shares, ABT reached to a volume of 5093191 in the most recent trading day, which is why market watchdogs consider the stock to be active.

Here is what top equities market gurus are saying about Abbott Laboratories [ABT]:

Based on careful and fact-backed analyses by Wall Street experts, the current consensus on the target price for ABT shares is $123.97 per share. Analysis on target price and performance of stocks is usually carefully studied by market experts, and the current Wall Street consensus on ABT stock is a recommendation set at 2.00. This rating represents a strong Buy recommendation, on the scale from 1 to 5, where 5 would mean strong sell, 4 represents Sell, 3 is Hold, and 2 indicates Buy.

Mizuho have made an estimate for Abbott Laboratories shares, keeping their opinion on the stock as Neutral, with their previous recommendation back on October 26, 2022. While these analysts kept the previous recommendation, Barclays raised their target price to Overweight. The new note on the price target was released on October 18, 2022, representing the official price target for Abbott Laboratories stock. Previously, the target price had yet another raise to $110, while Jefferies analysts kept a Hold rating on ABT stock.

The Average True Range (ATR) for Abbott Laboratories is set at 2.16, with the Price to Sales ratio for ABT stock in the period of the last 12 months amounting to 3.96. The Price to Book ratio for the last quarter was 4.68, with the Price to Cash per share for the same quarter was set at 5.80. Price to Free Cash Flow for ABT in the course of the last twelve months was 38.45 with Quick ratio for the last quarter at 1.20.

Trading performance analysis for ABT stock

Abbott Laboratories [ABT] fell into the red zone at the end of the last week, falling into a negative trend and dropping by -1.43. With this latest performance, ABT shares dropped by -8.88% in over the last four-week period, additionally sinking by -9.83% over the last 6 months – not to mention a drop of -13.57% in the past year of trading.

Overbought and oversold stocks can be easily traced with the Relative Strength Index (RSI), where an RSI result of over 70 would be overbought, and any rate below 30 would indicate oversold conditions. An RSI rate of 50 would represent a neutral market momentum. The current RSI for ABT stock in for the last two-week period is set at 35.66, with the RSI for the last a single of trading hit 35.88, and the three-weeks RSI is set at 37.15 for Abbott Laboratories [ABT]. The present Moving Average for the last 50 days of trading for this stock 107.59, while it was recorded at 98.19 for the last single week of trading, and 106.30 for the last 200 days.

Abbott Laboratories [ABT]: A deeper dive into fundamental analysis

Operating Margin for any stock indicates how profitable investing would be, and Abbott Laboratories [ABT] shares currently have an operating margin of +19.16 and a Gross Margin at +51.14. Abbott Laboratories’s Net Margin is presently recorded at +15.82.

Return on Equity for this stock inclined to 19.05, with Return on Assets sitting at 9.23.

Abbott Laboratories’s liquidity data is similarly interesting compelling, with a Quick Ratio of 1.20 and a Current Ratio set at 1.60.

Abbott Laboratories [ABT]: An earnings per share (EPS) analysis

The progress of the company may be observed through the prism of EPS growth rate, while Wall Street analysts are focusing on predicting the 5-year EPS growth rate for ABT. When it comes to the mentioned value, analysts are expecting to see the 5-year EPS growth rate for Abbott Laboratories go to 8.30%.

An analysis of insider ownership at Abbott Laboratories [ABT]

There are presently around $128,802 million, or 76.20% of ABT stock, in the hands of institutional investors. The top three institutional holders of ABT stocks are: VANGUARD GROUP INC with ownership of 155,480,794, which is approximately 0.594% of the company’s market cap and around 0.40% of the total institutional ownership; BLACKROCK INC., holding 137,935,172 shares of the stock with an approximate value of $13.59 billion in ABT stocks shares; and CAPITAL RESEARCH GLOBAL INVESTORS, currently with $7.57 billion in ABT stock with ownership of nearly -2.565% of the company’s market capitalization.

1,304 institutional holders increased their position in Abbott Laboratories [NYSE:ABT] by around 58,547,717 shares. Additionally, 1,209 investors decreased positions by around 52,047,839 shares, while 381 investors held positions by with 1,196,370,933 shares. The mentioned changes placed institutional holdings at 1,306,966,489 shares, according to the latest SEC report filing. ABT stock had 282 new institutional investments in for a total of 7,366,354 shares, while 108 institutional investors sold positions of 4,329,528 shares during the same period.