Ballentine Partners LLC Has $3.18 Million Stock Position in Amgen Inc. (NASDAQ:AMGN)

Ballentine Partners LLC raised its stake in shares of Amgen Inc. (NASDAQ:AMGN) by 12.5% during the 4th quarter, according to the company in its most recent Form 13F filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). The institutional investor owned 11,034 shares of the medical research company’s stock after buying an additional 1,225 shares during the period. Ballentine Partners LLC’s holdings in Amgen were worth $3,178,000 at the end of the most recent quarter.

Several other institutional investors also recently bought and sold shares of AMGN. Vanguard Group Inc. increased its stake in Amgen by 0.3% during the third quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 49,035,981 shares of the medical research company’s stock valued at $13,178,910,000 after acquiring an additional 165,636 shares during the period. Morgan Stanley boosted its holdings in shares of Amgen by 12.9% in the 4th quarter. Morgan Stanley now owns 13,301,365 shares of the medical research company’s stock worth $3,493,471,000 after acquiring an additional 1,523,665 shares in the last quarter. Charles Schwab Investment Management Inc. boosted its holdings in shares of Amgen by 1.1% in the 1st quarter. Charles Schwab Investment Management Inc. now owns 8,819,690 shares of the medical research company’s stock worth $2,132,778,000 after acquiring an additional 94,565 shares in the last quarter. Moneta Group Investment Advisors LLC lifted its holdings in Amgen by 83,875.6% during the 4th quarter. Moneta Group Investment Advisors LLC now owns 7,541,011 shares of the medical research company’s stock worth $1,980,571,000 after buying an additional 7,532,031 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Northern Trust Corp lifted its holdings in Amgen by 3.8% during the 3rd quarter. Northern Trust Corp now owns 6,977,625 shares of the medical research company’s stock worth $1,875,306,000 after buying an additional 255,463 shares in the last quarter. 76.50% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

AMGN has been the subject of several recent research reports. The Goldman Sachs Group upped their target price on shares of Amgen from $313.00 to $350.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a research report on Wednesday, February 7th. StockNews.com cut Amgen from a “buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a report on Thursday, March 28th. BMO Capital Markets raised Amgen from a “market perform” rating to an “outperform” rating and boosted their price target for the stock from $286.00 to $326.00 in a report on Tuesday, December 19th. Morgan Stanley reduced their price objective on Amgen from $281.00 to $278.00 and set an “equal weight” rating on the stock in a research report on Wednesday, February 7th. Finally, Daiwa Capital Markets upgraded Amgen from a “neutral” rating to a “buy” rating and upped their price target for the company from $264.00 to $320.00 in a research report on Thursday, December 21st. One research analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, ten have assigned a hold rating and nine have issued a buy rating to the stock. According to data from MarketBeat.com, the stock currently has a consensus rating of “Hold” and a consensus target price of $295.30.

Amgen Stock Down 0.6 %

AMGN stock traded down $1.79 during trading on Wednesday, reaching $274.42. 1,668,687 shares of the stock were exchanged, compared to its average volume of 2,988,342. The firm’s 50 day moving average is $288.00 and its 200 day moving average is $281.45. Amgen Inc. has a twelve month low of $211.71 and a twelve month high of $329.72. The company has a current ratio of 1.65, a quick ratio of 1.13 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 10.14. The firm has a market cap of $147.07 billion, a P/E ratio of 22.11, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 2.67 and a beta of 0.58.

Amgen (NASDAQ:AMGN) last posted its quarterly earnings results on Tuesday, February 6th. The medical research company reported $4.71 earnings per share for the quarter, topping analysts’ consensus estimates of $4.66 by $0.05. Amgen had a return on equity of 154.27% and a net margin of 23.83%. The business had revenue of $8.20 billion for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $8.13 billion. During the same period in the prior year, the business earned $4.09 EPS. The firm’s revenue for the quarter was up 19.8% on a year-over-year basis. As a group, research analysts forecast that Amgen Inc. will post 19.48 EPS for the current year.

Amgen Announces Dividend

The business also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Friday, June 7th. Stockholders of record on Friday, May 17th will be paid a $2.25 dividend. This represents a $9.00 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 3.28%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Thursday, May 16th. Amgen’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is presently 72.06%.

About Amgen

Amgen Inc discovers, develops, manufactures, and delivers human therapeutics worldwide. The company's principal products include Enbrel to treat plaque psoriasis, rheumatoid arthritis, and psoriatic arthritis; Otezla for the treatment of adult patients with plaque psoriasis, psoriatic arthritis, and oral ulcers associated with Behçet's disease; Prolia to treat postmenopausal women with osteoporosis; XGEVA for skeletal-related events prevention; Repatha, which reduces the risks of myocardial infarction, stroke, and coronary revascularization; Nplate for the treatment of patients with immune thrombocytopenia; KYPROLIS to treat patients with relapsed or refractory multiple myeloma; Aranesp to treat a lower-than-normal number of red blood cells and anemia; EVENITY for the treatment of osteoporosis in postmenopausal for men and women; Vectibix to treat patients with wild-type RAS metastatic colorectal cancer; BLINCYTO for the treatment of patients with acute lymphoblastic leukemia; TEPEZZA to treat thyroid eye disease; and KRYSTEXXA for the treatment of chronic refractory gout.