Barclays Begins Coverage on Exact Sciences (NASDAQ:EXAS)

Analysts at Barclays assumed coverage on shares of Exact Sciences (NASDAQ:EXAS) in a report issued on Thursday, MarketBeat reports. The firm set an “overweight” rating and a $70.00 price target on the medical research company’s stock. Barclays‘s target price would indicate a potential upside of 25.04% from the stock’s current price.

Other analysts also recently issued reports about the stock. Evercore ISI dropped their price objective on shares of Exact Sciences from $80.00 to $60.00 and set an “outperform” rating for the company in a report on Wednesday, November 6th. Raymond James reaffirmed a “market perform” rating on shares of Exact Sciences in a research note on Thursday, September 26th. BTIG Research raised their price objective on Exact Sciences from $65.00 to $75.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a report on Tuesday, November 26th. William Blair reissued an “outperform” rating on shares of Exact Sciences in a research note on Monday, January 13th. Finally, Craig Hallum cut their price objective on shares of Exact Sciences from $82.00 to $65.00 and set a “buy” rating for the company in a research note on Wednesday, November 6th. One analyst has rated the stock with a hold rating and eighteen have assigned a buy rating to the company’s stock. Based on data from MarketBeat, Exact Sciences currently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $72.76.

Exact Sciences Price Performance

Exact Sciences stock opened at $55.98 on Thursday. The stock has a market cap of $10.36 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of -47.85 and a beta of 1.24. The company has a quick ratio of 1.93, a current ratio of 2.12 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.72. The business has a 50-day simple moving average of $57.54 and a 200 day simple moving average of $59.40. Exact Sciences has a 52 week low of $40.62 and a 52 week high of $79.62.

Exact Sciences (NASDAQ:EXAS) last issued its quarterly earnings data on Tuesday, November 5th. The medical research company reported ($0.21) EPS for the quarter, missing the consensus estimate of ($0.20) by ($0.01). The business had revenue of $708.66 million for the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $716.80 million. Exact Sciences had a negative return on equity of 6.17% and a negative net margin of 7.95%. Exact Sciences’s revenue for the quarter was up 12.8% compared to the same quarter last year. On average, research analysts forecast that Exact Sciences will post -1.1 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Insider Activity at Exact Sciences

In other news, CEO Kevin T. Conroy purchased 19,500 shares of Exact Sciences stock in a transaction that occurred on Wednesday, November 13th. The shares were bought at an average cost of $51.35 per share, with a total value of $1,001,325.00. Following the completion of the purchase, the chief executive officer now directly owns 1,074,191 shares in the company, valued at approximately $55,159,707.85. This trade represents a 1.85 % increase in their ownership of the stock. The acquisition was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which can be accessed through this hyperlink. 1.36% of the stock is currently owned by company insiders.

Institutional Inflows and Outflows

Institutional investors and hedge funds have recently added to or reduced their stakes in the stock. Dimensional Fund Advisors LP lifted its holdings in shares of Exact Sciences by 12.1% during the 2nd quarter. Dimensional Fund Advisors LP now owns 1,002,784 shares of the medical research company’s stock valued at $42,389,000 after buying an additional 108,296 shares during the period. Amalgamated Bank boosted its position in Exact Sciences by 2.7% in the second quarter. Amalgamated Bank now owns 10,937 shares of the medical research company’s stock worth $462,000 after purchasing an additional 284 shares during the last quarter. Xponance Inc. grew its stake in shares of Exact Sciences by 3.8% during the 2nd quarter. Xponance Inc. now owns 21,576 shares of the medical research company’s stock valued at $912,000 after purchasing an additional 799 shares during the period. BRITISH COLUMBIA INVESTMENT MANAGEMENT Corp increased its position in shares of Exact Sciences by 61.2% during the 2nd quarter. BRITISH COLUMBIA INVESTMENT MANAGEMENT Corp now owns 34,787 shares of the medical research company’s stock valued at $1,470,000 after purchasing an additional 13,213 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Armistice Capital LLC lifted its stake in shares of Exact Sciences by 91.6% in the 2nd quarter. Armistice Capital LLC now owns 1,400,086 shares of the medical research company’s stock worth $59,154,000 after purchasing an additional 669,438 shares during the period. Institutional investors own 88.82% of the company’s stock.

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.