Amgen Inc. (NASDAQ:AMGN) Short Interest Down 5.8% in March

Amgen Inc. (NASDAQ:AMGN) saw a significant decrease in short interest in March. As of March 31st, there was short interest totalling 10,470,000 shares, a decrease of 5.8% from the March 15th total of 11,110,000 shares. Currently, 2.0% of the shares of the stock are sold short. Based on an average daily trading volume, of 2,920,000 shares, the short-interest ratio is currently 3.6 days.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

A number of equities analysts recently issued reports on AMGN shares. The Goldman Sachs Group lifted their target price on Amgen from $313.00 to $350.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a report on Wednesday, February 7th. Leerink Partnrs cut shares of Amgen from an “outperform” rating to a “market perform” rating in a report on Wednesday, February 7th. StockNews.com downgraded shares of Amgen from a “buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a research report on Thursday, March 28th. Royal Bank of Canada reaffirmed an “outperform” rating and issued a $329.00 price target on shares of Amgen in a research report on Wednesday, April 3rd. Finally, Truist Financial reaffirmed a “buy” rating and issued a $320.00 target price on shares of Amgen in a report on Friday, April 12th. Ten research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and ten have issued a buy rating to the company’s stock. According to MarketBeat.com, the company has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $298.38.

Institutional Investors Weigh In On Amgen

A number of hedge funds have recently added to or reduced their stakes in AMGN. Moneta Group Investment Advisors LLC boosted its position in Amgen by 83,875.6% in the 4th quarter. Moneta Group Investment Advisors LLC now owns 7,541,011 shares of the medical research company’s stock valued at $1,980,571,000 after buying an additional 7,532,031 shares during the last quarter. Norges Bank acquired a new position in Amgen in the fourth quarter valued at approximately $1,556,912,000. Price T Rowe Associates Inc. MD raised its position in shares of Amgen by 158.0% during the 4th quarter. Price T Rowe Associates Inc. MD now owns 2,950,013 shares of the medical research company’s stock valued at $774,791,000 after acquiring an additional 1,806,456 shares during the last quarter. International Assets Investment Management LLC acquired a new stake in shares of Amgen during the fourth quarter worth $4,589,900,000. Finally, Morgan Stanley increased its stake in Amgen by 12.9% in the fourth quarter. Morgan Stanley now owns 13,301,365 shares of the medical research company’s stock valued at $3,493,471,000 after purchasing an additional 1,523,665 shares in the last quarter. Institutional investors own 76.50% of the company’s stock.

Amgen Stock Performance

Amgen stock opened at $264.07 on Thursday. The firm has a market capitalization of $141.52 billion, a P/E ratio of 21.14, a P/E/G ratio of 2.47 and a beta of 0.58. The stock has a fifty day moving average price of $277.99 and a two-hundred day moving average price of $281.37. Amgen has a 52-week low of $211.71 and a 52-week high of $329.72. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 10.14, a current ratio of 1.65 and a quick ratio of 1.13.

Amgen (NASDAQ:AMGN) last issued its quarterly earnings data on Tuesday, February 6th. The medical research company reported $4.71 earnings per share for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $4.66 by $0.05. Amgen had a net margin of 23.83% and a return on equity of 154.27%. The firm had revenue of $8.20 billion for the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $8.13 billion. During the same period in the prior year, the firm earned $4.09 earnings per share. The company’s quarterly revenue was up 19.8% compared to the same quarter last year. As a group, analysts anticipate that Amgen will post 19.47 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Amgen Dividend Announcement

The firm also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Friday, June 7th. Stockholders of record on Friday, May 17th will be paid a $2.25 dividend. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Thursday, May 16th. This represents a $9.00 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 3.41%. Amgen’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is presently 72.06%.

About Amgen

Amgen Inc discovers, develops, manufactures, and delivers human therapeutics worldwide. The company's principal products include Enbrel to treat plaque psoriasis, rheumatoid arthritis, and psoriatic arthritis; Otezla for the treatment of adult patients with plaque psoriasis, psoriatic arthritis, and oral ulcers associated with Behçet's disease; Prolia to treat postmenopausal women with osteoporosis; XGEVA for skeletal-related events prevention; Repatha, which reduces the risks of myocardial infarction, stroke, and coronary revascularization; Nplate for the treatment of patients with immune thrombocytopenia; KYPROLIS to treat patients with relapsed or refractory multiple myeloma; Aranesp to treat a lower-than-normal number of red blood cells and anemia; EVENITY for the treatment of osteoporosis in postmenopausal for men and women; Vectibix to treat patients with wild-type RAS metastatic colorectal cancer; BLINCYTO for the treatment of patients with acute lymphoblastic leukemia; TEPEZZA to treat thyroid eye disease; and KRYSTEXXA for the treatment of chronic refractory gout.