Prudential Financial Inc. Buys 928,465 Shares of Centene Co. (NYSE:CNC)

Prudential Financial Inc. lifted its position in Centene Co. (NYSE:CNC) by 80.6% in the fourth quarter, Holdings Channel.com reports. The institutional investor owned 2,080,826 shares of the company’s stock after purchasing an additional 928,465 shares during the period. Prudential Financial Inc.’s holdings in Centene were worth $126,056,000 as of its most recent filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

Other hedge funds also recently bought and sold shares of the company. Capital Advisors Ltd. LLC increased its holdings in Centene by 75.3% in the 4th quarter. Capital Advisors Ltd. LLC now owns 412 shares of the company’s stock valued at $25,000 after buying an additional 177 shares during the period. Rialto Wealth Management LLC bought a new position in shares of Centene in the fourth quarter valued at about $30,000. OFI Invest Asset Management acquired a new position in shares of Centene during the fourth quarter worth approximately $33,000. SRS Capital Advisors Inc. lifted its holdings in Centene by 73.4% during the 4th quarter. SRS Capital Advisors Inc. now owns 631 shares of the company’s stock worth $38,000 after buying an additional 267 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Riverview Trust Co boosted its holdings in Centene by 172.7% in the fourth quarter. Riverview Trust Co now owns 758 shares of the company’s stock valued at $46,000 after acquiring an additional 480 shares during the last quarter. 93.63% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

A number of equities research analysts recently commented on CNC shares. Truist Financial decreased their price objective on Centene from $89.00 to $84.00 and set a “buy” rating for the company in a research note on Friday, December 13th. StockNews.com lowered shares of Centene from a “strong-buy” rating to a “buy” rating in a research report on Thursday, February 6th. JPMorgan Chase & Co. restated an “overweight” rating and issued a $75.00 price target (down from $80.00) on shares of Centene in a research note on Tuesday, December 17th. Barclays lifted their price objective on shares of Centene from $91.00 to $93.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a research report on Friday, December 13th. Finally, Jefferies Financial Group lowered Centene from a “hold” rating to an “underperform” rating and decreased their target price for the stock from $68.00 to $52.00 in a report on Tuesday, December 10th. One analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, five have given a hold rating and ten have given a buy rating to the company’s stock. According to data from MarketBeat, the company has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $79.92.

Centene Stock Performance

NYSE:CNC opened at $59.38 on Tuesday. Centene Co. has a 1 year low of $55.03 and a 1 year high of $80.59. The business has a fifty day simple moving average of $60.18 and a two-hundred day simple moving average of $62.98. The company has a market capitalization of $29.45 billion, a P/E ratio of 9.52, a P/E/G ratio of 0.80 and a beta of 0.40. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.70, a current ratio of 1.11 and a quick ratio of 1.10.

Centene (NYSE:CNC) last posted its earnings results on Tuesday, February 4th. The company reported $0.80 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $0.49 by $0.31. Centene had a net margin of 2.03% and a return on equity of 13.85%. The business had revenue of $40.81 billion for the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $38.78 billion. During the same period in the prior year, the company posted $0.45 EPS. The business’s revenue for the quarter was up 3.4% compared to the same quarter last year. On average, analysts expect that Centene Co. will post 6.86 earnings per share for the current year.

About Centene

Centene Corporation operates as a healthcare enterprise that provides programs and services to under-insured and uninsured families, commercial organizations, and military families in the United States. The company operates through Medicaid, Medicare, Commercial, and Other segments. The Medicaid segment offers health plan coverage, including medicaid expansion, aged, blind, disabled, children’s health insurance program, foster care, medicare-medicaid plans, long-term services and support.