Royal Bank of Canada Initiates Coverage on Exact Sciences (NASDAQ:EXAS)

Royal Bank of Canada initiated coverage on shares of Exact Sciences (NASDAQ:EXAS) in a research note published on Thursday morning, MarketBeat Ratings reports. The firm issued a sector perform rating and a $52.00 price objective on the medical research company’s stock.

Other equities research analysts have also recently issued reports about the stock. Scotiabank increased their target price on shares of Exact Sciences from $70.00 to $73.00 and gave the company a “sector outperform” rating in a research report on Monday, February 24th. Barclays cut their target price on Exact Sciences from $70.00 to $65.00 and set an “overweight” rating for the company in a research note on Thursday, February 20th. Bank of America lowered their price target on shares of Exact Sciences from $72.00 to $65.00 and set a “buy” rating on the stock in a research report on Thursday, February 20th. TD Cowen increased their price target on shares of Exact Sciences from $82.00 to $86.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a research note on Tuesday, November 26th. Finally, William Blair reissued an “outperform” rating on shares of Exact Sciences in a research report on Thursday, February 20th. Two equities research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and eighteen have assigned a buy rating to the stock. According to data from MarketBeat, Exact Sciences currently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus target price of $70.83.

Exact Sciences Stock Down 7.1 %

EXAS stock opened at $43.04 on Thursday. The firm’s fifty day simple moving average is $52.26 and its 200-day simple moving average is $59.06. The company has a market capitalization of $7.99 billion, a P/E ratio of -7.73 and a beta of 1.25. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.97, a current ratio of 2.15 and a quick ratio of 1.93. Exact Sciences has a 12 month low of $40.62 and a 12 month high of $79.62.

Exact Sciences (NASDAQ:EXAS) last posted its earnings results on Wednesday, February 19th. The medical research company reported ($0.06) EPS for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of ($0.29) by $0.23. The firm had revenue of $713.42 million for the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $701.45 million. Exact Sciences had a negative return on equity of 5.29% and a negative net margin of 37.29%. As a group, equities research analysts forecast that Exact Sciences will post -0.58 earnings per share for the current year.

Institutional Trading of Exact Sciences

Hedge funds have recently added to or reduced their stakes in the company. Price T Rowe Associates Inc. MD grew its stake in shares of Exact Sciences by 74.7% during the fourth quarter. Price T Rowe Associates Inc. MD now owns 5,760,241 shares of the medical research company’s stock worth $323,669,000 after purchasing an additional 2,462,165 shares in the last quarter. Capital World Investors boosted its holdings in Exact Sciences by 10.7% in the fourth quarter. Capital World Investors now owns 17,537,617 shares of the medical research company’s stock valued at $985,439,000 after purchasing an additional 1,696,321 shares in the last quarter. Mackenzie Financial Corp increased its stake in Exact Sciences by 107.7% in the fourth quarter. Mackenzie Financial Corp now owns 2,919,325 shares of the medical research company’s stock valued at $164,037,000 after purchasing an additional 1,513,873 shares during the last quarter. Groupama Asset Managment acquired a new stake in Exact Sciences during the third quarter worth approximately $821,000. Finally, Norges Bank purchased a new stake in shares of Exact Sciences during the 4th quarter worth approximately $50,625,000. Institutional investors and hedge funds 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.