Icon Plc (NASDAQ:ICLR) Given Average Recommendation of “Moderate Buy” by Analysts

Icon Plc (NASDAQ:ICLR) has received an average rating of “Moderate Buy” from the sixteen brokerages that are currently covering the firm, Marketbeat.com reports. Five analysts have rated the stock with a hold recommendation, nine have assigned a buy recommendation and two have issued a strong buy recommendation on the company. The average twelve-month target price among brokerages that have covered the stock in the last year is $219.5385.

A number of research analysts have recently issued reports on ICLR shares. JPMorgan Chase & Co. lowered Icon from an “overweight” rating to a “neutral” rating and dropped their target price for the company from $265.00 to $150.00 in a report on Tuesday, April 29th. Truist Financial boosted their target price on Icon from $187.00 to $234.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a report on Friday, July 25th. UBS Group boosted their target price on Icon from $170.00 to $240.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a report on Friday, July 25th. Baird R W raised Icon from a “hold” rating to a “strong-buy” rating in a report on Thursday, July 24th. Finally, Mizuho upped their price objective on Icon from $173.00 to $225.00 and gave the stock an “outperform” rating in a report on Friday, July 25th.

Icon Trading Down 0.5%

NASDAQ:ICLR opened at $175.36 on Friday. The firm has a market cap of $14.16 billion, a P/E ratio of 18.04, a PEG ratio of 2.38 and a beta of 1.17. The company has a current ratio of 1.29, a quick ratio of 1.29 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.35. The stock’s 50 day simple moving average is $155.41 and its 200-day simple moving average is $160.65. Icon has a 12-month low of $125.10 and a 12-month high of $328.35.

Icon (NASDAQ:ICLR) last released its earnings results on Wednesday, July 23rd. The medical research company reported $3.26 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $3.18 by $0.08. The business had revenue of $2.02 billion for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $1.98 billion. Icon had a return on equity of 10.95% and a net margin of 9.82%. The company’s revenue for the quarter was down 4.8% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same quarter in the previous year, the company posted $3.75 earnings per share. Equities analysts anticipate that Icon will post 13.38 EPS for the current year.

Institutional Trading of Icon

Large investors have recently bought and sold shares of the company. SVB Wealth LLC acquired a new stake in Icon in the first quarter valued at $28,000. Ameritas Advisory Services LLC acquired a new stake in Icon in the second quarter valued at $48,000. LRI Investments LLC acquired a new stake in Icon in the second quarter valued at $49,000. NBC Securities Inc. acquired a new stake in Icon in the first quarter valued at $59,000. Finally, Blue Trust Inc. boosted its stake in shares of Icon by 44.0% during the second quarter. Blue Trust Inc. now owns 393 shares of the medical research company’s stock valued at $57,000 after acquiring an additional 120 shares during the last quarter. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 95.61% of the company’s stock.

Icon Company Profile

ICON Public Limited Company, a clinical research organization, provides outsourced development and commercialization services in Ireland, rest of Europe, the United States, and internationally. The company specializes in the strategic development, management, and analysis of programs that support various stages of the clinical development process from compound selection to Phase I-IV clinical studies.