Edwards Lifesciences Co. (NYSE:EW) Short Interest Down 6.3% in October

Edwards Lifesciences Co. (NYSE:EW) was the recipient of a significant drop in short interest in October. As of October 31st, there was short interest totalling 7,700,000 shares, a drop of 6.3% from the October 15th total of 8,220,000 shares. Currently, 1.3% of the shares of the stock are sold short. Based on an average daily volume of 6,070,000 shares, the days-to-cover ratio is presently 1.3 days.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

Several brokerages recently commented on EW. Daiwa America downgraded shares of Edwards Lifesciences from a “strong-buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a report on Wednesday, October 30th. Sanford C. Bernstein raised Edwards Lifesciences from a “strong sell” rating to a “hold” rating in a research note on Monday, October 28th. UBS Group cut their price objective on Edwards Lifesciences from $90.00 to $75.00 and set a “neutral” rating on the stock in a research report on Tuesday, September 10th. Wolfe Research upgraded Edwards Lifesciences from an “underperform” rating to a “peer perform” rating in a research report on Monday, July 29th. Finally, Oppenheimer reissued an “outperform” rating and issued a $90.00 price objective on shares of Edwards Lifesciences in a research report on Thursday, September 12th. Seventeen analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and ten have assigned a buy rating to the stock. According to MarketBeat, the company has a consensus rating of “Hold” and an average price target of $75.67.

Insider Activity at Edwards Lifesciences

In other Edwards Lifesciences news, VP Daveen Chopra sold 1,250 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Tuesday, August 20th. The stock was sold at an average price of $69.95, for a total transaction of $87,437.50. Following the sale, the vice president now directly owns 29,333 shares in the company, valued at $2,051,843.35. This represents a 4.09 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which is available at this link. Also, insider Larry L. Wood sold 25,000 shares of Edwards Lifesciences stock in a transaction that occurred on Tuesday, November 5th. The stock was sold at an average price of $65.91, for a total value of $1,647,750.00. Following the completion of the transaction, the insider now owns 198,526 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $13,084,848.66. This trade represents a 11.18 % decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Over the last ninety days, insiders sold 41,250 shares of company stock valued at $2,744,438. 1.29% of the stock is owned by corporate insiders.

Institutional Trading of Edwards Lifesciences

Several hedge funds and other institutional investors have recently bought and sold shares of EW. Cetera Advisors LLC boosted its stake in shares of Edwards Lifesciences by 175.1% in the first quarter. Cetera Advisors LLC now owns 38,090 shares of the medical research company’s stock worth $3,640,000 after acquiring an additional 24,242 shares during the last quarter. BDF Gestion purchased a new stake in shares of Edwards Lifesciences during the second quarter worth $5,148,000. Tidal Investments LLC raised its position in shares of Edwards Lifesciences by 54.7% in the first quarter. Tidal Investments LLC now owns 30,245 shares of the medical research company’s stock valued at $2,890,000 after buying an additional 10,700 shares during the last quarter. Raymond James & Associates lifted its stake in shares of Edwards Lifesciences by 2.8% in the second quarter. Raymond James & Associates now owns 1,825,230 shares of the medical research company’s stock worth $168,597,000 after buying an additional 50,124 shares in the last quarter. Finally, AIA Group Ltd boosted its position in Edwards Lifesciences by 91.7% during the third quarter. AIA Group Ltd now owns 749,524 shares of the medical research company’s stock worth $49,461,000 after acquiring an additional 358,556 shares during the last quarter. 79.46% of the stock is owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

Edwards Lifesciences Stock Up 1.3 %

Shares of EW traded up $0.91 during mid-day trading on Monday, hitting $68.67. 197,357 shares of the company traded hands, compared to its average volume of 4,623,145. The company has a market capitalization of $40.50 billion, a PE ratio of 9.78, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 3.81 and a beta of 1.12. Edwards Lifesciences has a 1-year low of $58.93 and a 1-year high of $96.12. The company has a quick ratio of 2.89, a current ratio of 3.46 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.06. The business has a 50 day moving average of $67.44 and a 200 day moving average of $76.12.

Edwards Lifesciences (NYSE:EW) last released its quarterly earnings data on Thursday, October 24th. The medical research company reported $0.67 EPS for the quarter, meeting the consensus estimate of $0.67. The business had revenue of $1.35 billion for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $1.57 billion. Edwards Lifesciences had a net margin of 70.82% and a return on equity of 20.76%. The business’s revenue for the quarter was up 8.9% on a year-over-year basis. During the same period in the prior year, the firm earned $0.59 EPS. Equities research analysts anticipate that Edwards Lifesciences will post 2.57 EPS for the current year.

Edwards Lifesciences Company Profile

Edwards Lifesciences Corporation provides products and technologies for structural heart disease and critical care monitoring in the United States, Europe, Japan, and internationally. It offers transcatheter heart valve replacement products for the minimally invasive replacement of aortic heart valves under the Edwards SAPIEN family of valves system; and transcatheter heart valve repair and replacement products to treat mitral and tricuspid valve diseases under the PASCAL PRECISION and Cardioband names.