Analysts Set Exact Sciences Co. (NASDAQ:EXAS) PT at $77.77

Exact Sciences Co. (NASDAQ:EXAS) has been assigned a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” from the fifteen ratings firms that are currently covering the firm, Marketbeat reports. One investment analyst has rated the stock with a hold rating and fourteen have issued a buy rating on the company. The average twelve-month target price among brokerages that have issued a report on the stock in the last year is $78.38.

Several analysts have recently commented on EXAS shares. Evercore ISI increased their target price on Exact Sciences from $72.00 to $80.00 and gave the stock an “outperform” rating in a report on Tuesday. Wells Fargo & Company assumed coverage on Exact Sciences in a report on Tuesday, August 27th. They set an “overweight” rating and a $75.00 target price on the stock. Stifel Nicolaus decreased their price target on Exact Sciences from $100.00 to $82.00 and set a “buy” rating on the stock in a report on Thursday, August 1st. Canaccord Genuity Group reiterated a “buy” rating and issued a $75.00 price target on shares of Exact Sciences in a report on Friday, September 13th. Finally, Scotiabank started coverage on Exact Sciences in a research note on Thursday, June 27th. They issued a “sector outperform” rating and a $70.00 target price on the stock.

Exact Sciences Price Performance

Shares of NASDAQ EXAS opened at $68.36 on Monday. The company has a quick ratio of 1.98, a current ratio of 2.17 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.73. The firm’s 50-day simple moving average is $60.83 and its 200 day simple moving average is $56.37. Exact Sciences has a fifty-two week low of $40.62 and a fifty-two week high of $79.62. The stock has a market cap of $12.61 billion, a P/E ratio of -51.79 and a beta of 1.26.

Exact Sciences (NASDAQ:EXAS) last announced its quarterly earnings results on Wednesday, July 31st. The medical research company reported ($0.09) EPS for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of ($0.37) by $0.28. Exact Sciences had a negative return on equity of 4.97% and a negative net margin of 6.70%. The business had revenue of $699.26 million during the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $690.02 million. During the same quarter in the previous year, the business posted ($0.45) EPS. The firm’s quarterly revenue was up 12.4% compared to the same quarter last year. Equities analysts expect that Exact Sciences will post -0.87 EPS for the current year.

Insider Buying and Selling

In other Exact Sciences news, EVP Brian Baranick sold 929 shares of Exact Sciences stock in a transaction on Wednesday, September 18th. The shares were sold at an average price of $70.00, for a total transaction of $65,030.00. Following the completion of the transaction, the executive vice president now directly owns 13,687 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $958,090. The trade was a 0.00 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available through this hyperlink. 1.36% of the stock is currently owned by company insiders.

Institutional Trading of Exact Sciences

A number of large investors have recently made changes to their positions in the stock. Vanguard Group Inc. boosted its stake in shares of Exact Sciences by 1.0% during the first quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 17,740,092 shares of the medical research company’s stock valued at $1,225,131,000 after purchasing an additional 180,341 shares during the period. Capital World Investors increased its holdings in shares of Exact Sciences by 74.4% during the first quarter. Capital World Investors now owns 13,025,313 shares of the medical research company’s stock valued at $899,528,000 after acquiring an additional 5,557,168 shares in the last quarter. William Blair Investment Management LLC acquired a new position in shares of Exact Sciences during the second quarter valued at about $163,896,000. Champlain Investment Partners LLC boosted its position in Exact Sciences by 175.3% in the first quarter. Champlain Investment Partners LLC now owns 2,258,235 shares of the medical research company’s stock valued at $155,954,000 after buying an additional 1,438,010 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Armistice Capital LLC boosted its position in Exact Sciences by 91.6% in the second quarter. Armistice Capital LLC now owns 1,400,086 shares of the medical research company’s stock valued at $59,154,000 after buying an additional 669,438 shares during the last quarter. 88.82% of the stock is owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

About Exact Sciences

Exact Sciences Corporation provides cancer screening and diagnostic test products in the United States and internationally. The company offers Cologuard, a non-invasive stool-based DNA screening test to detect DNA and hemoglobin biomarkers associated with colorectal cancer and pre-cancer. It also provides Oncotype DX Breast Recurrence Score Test; Oncotype DX Breast DCIS Score Test; Oncotype DX Colon Recurrence Score Test; OncoExTra Test for tumor profiling for patients with advanced, metastatic, refractory, relapsed, or recurrent cancer; and Covid-19 testing services.