United Capital Financial Advisors LLC Purchases 348 Shares of Centene Co. (NYSE:CNC)

United Capital Financial Advisors LLC boosted its position in shares of Centene Co. (NYSE:CNC) by 3.7% in the fourth quarter, according to the company in its most recent 13F filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). The fund owned 9,691 shares of the company’s stock after acquiring an additional 348 shares during the period. United Capital Financial Advisors LLC’s holdings in Centene were worth $587,000 at the end of the most recent quarter.

A number of other hedge funds also recently bought and sold shares of the company. Norges Bank acquired a new position in shares of Centene during the 4th quarter worth about $1,536,167,000. Invesco Ltd. lifted its holdings in shares of Centene by 21.7% during the fourth quarter. Invesco Ltd. now owns 10,555,456 shares of the company’s stock worth $639,450,000 after buying an additional 1,884,358 shares during the last quarter. Charles Schwab Investment Management Inc. boosted its position in shares of Centene by 3.6% in the fourth quarter. Charles Schwab Investment Management Inc. now owns 3,803,437 shares of the company’s stock valued at $230,412,000 after acquiring an additional 130,895 shares during the period. LSV Asset Management increased its position in Centene by 17.1% during the fourth quarter. LSV Asset Management now owns 3,279,433 shares of the company’s stock worth $198,668,000 after acquiring an additional 480,082 shares during the period. Finally, Amundi raised its stake in Centene by 77.2% during the 4th quarter. Amundi now owns 2,786,770 shares of the company’s stock valued at $176,040,000 after purchasing an additional 1,214,425 shares during the last quarter. 93.63% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

Several research analysts have recently issued reports on CNC shares. StockNews.com upgraded shares of Centene from a “buy” rating to a “strong-buy” rating in a report on Friday, April 11th. Jefferies Financial Group raised Centene from an “underperform” rating to a “hold” rating and upped their price target for the company from $53.00 to $64.00 in a report on Tuesday, April 8th. Robert W. Baird lowered their price objective on Centene from $71.00 to $69.00 and set a “neutral” rating on the stock in a research report on Tuesday, April 15th. Guggenheim assumed coverage on Centene in a research report on Wednesday, April 9th. They issued a “neutral” rating for the company. Finally, Wells Fargo & Company dropped their price objective on shares of Centene from $76.00 to $72.00 and set an “overweight” rating for the company in a research note on Friday, February 14th. Seven equities research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, nine have assigned a buy rating and one has assigned a strong buy rating to the company’s stock. Based on data from MarketBeat, the company currently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus price target of $80.69.

Centene Stock Down 2.1 %

NYSE CNC opened at $60.70 on Monday. The stock’s 50 day simple moving average is $59.77 and its 200 day simple moving average is $61.23. 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 Co. has a one year low of $55.03 and a one year high of $80.59. The firm has a market cap of $30.11 billion, a PE ratio of 9.73, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 0.80 and a beta of 0.53.

Centene (NYSE:CNC) last released its quarterly earnings results on Tuesday, February 4th. The company reported $0.80 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $0.49 by $0.31. Centene had a return on equity of 13.85% and a net margin of 2.03%. The business had revenue of $40.81 billion during the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $38.78 billion. During the same period in the previous year, the business posted $0.45 earnings per share. The firm’s revenue for the quarter was up 3.4% compared to the same quarter last year. As a group, sell-side analysts forecast that Centene Co. will post 6.86 earnings per share for the current fiscal 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.