Wedbush Raises Price Target on WellPoint (WLP), Forecasts Buybacks in Near Future
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Price: $128.71 --0%
Rating Summary:
6 Buy, 10 Hold, 0 Sell
Rating Trend: = Flat
Today's Overall Ratings:
Up: 6 | Down: 4 | New: 9
Rating Summary:
6 Buy, 10 Hold, 0 Sell
Rating Trend: = Flat
Today's Overall Ratings:
Up: 6 | Down: 4 | New: 9
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Wedbush is maintaining its Neutral rating on shares of WellPoint (NYSE: WLP), but is raising its price target from $80 to $83.
The price target increase is due to lower than expected utilization, which caused the firm to raise its 2011 and 2012 EPS estimates from $7.26 and $7.64 to $7.55 and $7.80. Wedbush is also lowering its commercial MLR estimate by 80bps.
The firm notes that MA enrollment is inline with prior expectations, but increased its PDP expectation by 65 thousand lives.
The company ended Q1 with a free cash balance of $2.4 billion and is estimated to receive another $2.2 billion from subsidiary dividends. Wedbush forecasts that WLP will utalize its cash balance with M&As through share buybacks.
An analyst at Wedbush comments, "The company has been one of the most active share repurchasers in the managed care space, spending 79% of operating cash flows over the past 10 years on share repurchases."
For more ratings news on WellPoint click here and for the rating history of WellPoint click here.
Shares of WellPoint closed at $76.68 yesterday.
The price target increase is due to lower than expected utilization, which caused the firm to raise its 2011 and 2012 EPS estimates from $7.26 and $7.64 to $7.55 and $7.80. Wedbush is also lowering its commercial MLR estimate by 80bps.
The firm notes that MA enrollment is inline with prior expectations, but increased its PDP expectation by 65 thousand lives.
The company ended Q1 with a free cash balance of $2.4 billion and is estimated to receive another $2.2 billion from subsidiary dividends. Wedbush forecasts that WLP will utalize its cash balance with M&As through share buybacks.
An analyst at Wedbush comments, "The company has been one of the most active share repurchasers in the managed care space, spending 79% of operating cash flows over the past 10 years on share repurchases."
For more ratings news on WellPoint click here and for the rating history of WellPoint click here.
Shares of WellPoint closed at $76.68 yesterday.
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