Boston Partners Sells 7,624,593 Shares of Centene Co. (NYSE:CNC)

Boston Partners trimmed its holdings in Centene Co. (NYSE:CNC) by 83.3% in the fourth quarter, according to the company in its most recent filing with the SEC. The fund owned 1,528,323 shares of the company’s stock after selling 7,624,593 shares during the quarter. Boston Partners owned 0.30% of Centene worth $92,619,000 at the end of the most recent quarter.

A number of other hedge funds have also recently made changes to their positions in CNC. Capital Advisors Ltd. LLC lifted its holdings in shares of Centene by 75.3% in the 4th quarter. Capital Advisors Ltd. LLC now owns 412 shares of the company’s stock worth $25,000 after acquiring an additional 177 shares during the last quarter. Rialto Wealth Management LLC purchased a new position in shares of Centene in the fourth quarter worth $30,000. OFI Invest Asset Management purchased a new position in shares of Centene in the fourth quarter worth $33,000. SRS Capital Advisors Inc. increased its stake in shares of Centene by 73.4% in the fourth quarter. SRS Capital Advisors Inc. now owns 631 shares of the company’s stock worth $38,000 after buying an additional 267 shares during the period. Finally, Riverview Trust Co increased its stake in shares of Centene by 172.7% in the fourth quarter. Riverview Trust Co now owns 758 shares of the company’s stock worth $46,000 after buying an additional 480 shares during the period. 93.63% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors.

Analyst Ratings Changes

Several brokerages recently commented on CNC. Cantor Fitzgerald reaffirmed an “overweight” rating and issued a $90.00 target price on shares of Centene in a research note on Wednesday, December 11th. StockNews.com downgraded shares of Centene from a “strong-buy” rating to a “buy” rating in a research note on Thursday, February 6th. UBS Group raised shares of Centene from a “neutral” rating to a “buy” rating and boosted their price objective for the company from $79.00 to $80.00 in a research report on Friday, December 13th. Stephens reduced their price objective on shares of Centene from $75.00 to $73.00 and set an “equal weight” rating on the stock in a research report on Friday, December 13th. Finally, JPMorgan Chase & Co. reissued an “overweight” rating and set a $75.00 price objective (down from $80.00) on shares of Centene in a research report on Tuesday, December 17th. One analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, five have assigned a hold rating and ten have given a buy rating to the company. Based on data from MarketBeat, Centene presently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average price target of $79.92.

Centene Stock Performance

Shares of CNC stock opened at $59.61 on Wednesday. Centene Co. has a 12 month low of $55.03 and a 12 month high of $80.59. The stock has a market cap of $29.57 billion, a PE ratio of 9.55, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 0.80 and a beta of 0.40. The company has a current ratio of 1.11, a quick ratio of 1.10 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.70. The company’s fifty day moving average price is $60.47 and its 200-day moving average price is $63.46.

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

Centene Profile

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.