Astrazeneca plc ADR (AZN): Choosing The Technical Investor Route

Astrazeneca plc ADR (NASDAQ:AZN) does about 4.11M shares in volume on a normal day but saw 3624143 shares change hands in the recent trading day. The company now has a market cap of 268.57B USD. Its current market price is $86.62, marking a decrease of -0.05% compared to the previous close of $86.66. The 52 week high reached by this stock is $86.88 whilst the lowest price level in 52 weeks is $60.47. The script in recent trading has seen the stock touch a high of $85 and a low of $79.

Astrazeneca plc ADR (AZN) has a 20-day trading average at $82.79 and the current price is -0.29% off the 52-week high compared with 43.24% distance from its 52-week low. The 50-day simple moving average of the closing price is $80.18 and its 200-day simple moving average is $71.64. If we look at the stock’s price movements over the week, volatility stands at 0.92%, which increases to 1.40% over 1 month. It is also key to look at other market indicators of price movement for the stock, where we see that the relative strength index (RSI) is at 72.69 to suggest the stock is overbought.

10 analysts observing the Astrazeneca plc ADR (AZN) stock have set the 12-month price targets for the company’s shares at between $79 and $85. The consensus objective for the share price is $90.76, suggesting that the stock has a potential upside of 4.56% over the period. The median price target is -5.63% away from the current levels at $82.

FactSet Research has provided data showing that 10 brokerages have issued ratings for the stock. 0 analysts have rated it as a sell, while 0 advise that it is a overweight. 8 analysts have rated it as a buy and 2 have advised that investors hold their positions. The consensus recommendation rating is Buy and Wall Street’s advice is for investors to Strong Buy the stock.

The company shares received a number of brokerage firm price updates over the past month, with the latest being on May 30, 2024 when Goldman initiated the stock to “Buy” and issued a price target of $97.

The current price level is 5.14%, 8.22%, and 21.11% away from its SMA20, SMA50, and SMA200 respectively, with the AZN price moving above the 50-day SMA on current market day. Astrazeneca plc ADR (AZN) stock is up 2.17% over the week and 10.87% over the past month. Its price is 28.61% year-to-date and 27.59% over the past year.

The stock last released its quarterly earnings report for quarter ended 6/30/2024, with the company’s earnings per share (EPS) of 0.87 above consensus estimates by 0.03. The company’s next earnings report forecasts estimating quarterly EPS at 1.04 and 4.03 for whole year. Expected sales for next quarter are $13.69B, which analysts say will come at $52.3B for the current fiscal year and next year at $56.16B. In addition, estimates put the company’s current quarterly revenue at an average of $13.11B.

Its 12-month price target is $82. To reach the target analysts have set, the stock logically needs to grow 4.56 percent from here. Of course, the average price target is just what the average analysts believe a stock will be worth in the next 52 weeks, and is only one metric. There are analysts with lower targets than the average, including one bearish Wall Street research firm advocating investors to wait for the price to pull back to $79, given the recent momentum. And then, on the bullish side of things, one analyst is expecting the stock to peak at $85.

Outstanding shares total 3.10B with insiders holding 0.00% of the shares and institutional holders owning 17.09% of the company’s common stock. The company has a return on investment of 9.51% and return on equity of 16.75%. The price to earnings ratio (P/E ratio) amounts to 41.97 while the forward price to earnings ratio is 18.24. The beta has a value of 0.48. Price to book ratio is 6.80 and price to sales ratio is 5.47.