Anthem stock has added 16% in 2021
Anthem, Inc. (NYSE:ANTM) is a provider of health insurance in the United States. ANTM is the largest for-profit managed health care company in the Blue Cross Blue Shield Association. Through its affiliated companies, Anthem serves more than 117 million people, including more than 44 million within its family of health plans. This afternoon, ANTM is trading up 0.7% at $372.01.
Earlier this month, Anthem announced that its senior management team is scheduled to present at the 19th Annual Morgan Stanley Global Healthcare Conference today, Sept. 9. Anthem's senior management team is also scheduled to present at Wells Fargo Virtual Healthcare Conference tomorrow, Sept. 10.
Taking a look at stock price action, Anthem stock has increased approximately 40% year-over-year and has added 52% since bottoming at a 52-week low of $244.10 last September. Additionally, shares of ANTM have grown 16% year-to-date, but fell 9% since hitting its record high of $406.00 in May. Moreover, Anthem stock offers a forward dividend of $4.52 and a dividend yield of 1.20%.
Anthem stock has outperformed earnings expectations on all four of its most recent earnings reports. For Q3 of 2020, ANTM beat analysts’ estimates by a margin of $0.05, reporting an EPS of $4.20. For Q4 of 2020, Anthem's EPS decreased to $2.54, still beating expectations by a margin of $0.02. For Q1 of 2021, ANTM posted an increase in earnings, rising to $7.01 per share and beating estimates by a margin of $0.50. For Q2 of 2021, Anthem reported an EPS of $7.03 and beat expectations by a margin of $0.70. Analysts have the health insurance company’s EPS coming in at $6.39 for the Q3 of 2021 earnings report.
From a fundamental point of view, Anthem stock has plenty of great qualities as a value investment. Although Anthem stock has a somewhat high price-earnings ratio of 21.95, the health insurance company’s earnings are expected to grow noticeably. As a result, analysts have placed a forward price-earnings ratio of 13.28 on ANTM. Anthem stock also has an impressive price-sales ratio of 0.75. Furthermore, Anthem has a solid balance sheet with $32.85 billion in cash and $24.22 billion in total debt.