Zhang Financial LLC Acquires 617 Shares of Amgen Inc. (NASDAQ:AMGN)

Zhang Financial LLC boosted its holdings in shares of Amgen Inc. (NASDAQ:AMGN) by 4.8% in the 4th quarter, HoldingsChannel.com reports. The institutional investor owned 13,480 shares of the medical research company’s stock after buying an additional 617 shares during the quarter. Zhang Financial LLC’s holdings in Amgen were worth $3,883,000 as of its most recent filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

Several other large investors also recently added to or reduced their stakes in AMGN. Vanguard Group Inc. boosted its position in shares of Amgen by 0.3% in the third quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 49,035,981 shares of the medical research company’s stock worth $13,178,910,000 after purchasing an additional 165,636 shares during the period. Morgan Stanley boosted its position in shares of Amgen by 12.9% in the fourth quarter. Morgan Stanley now owns 13,301,365 shares of the medical research company’s stock worth $3,493,471,000 after purchasing an additional 1,523,665 shares during the period. Charles Schwab Investment Management Inc. boosted its position in shares of Amgen by 1.1% in the first 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 purchasing an additional 94,565 shares during the period. Moneta Group Investment Advisors LLC boosted its position in shares of Amgen by 83,875.6% in the fourth 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 purchasing an additional 7,532,031 shares during the period. Finally, Northern Trust Corp boosted its position in shares of Amgen by 3.8% in the third quarter. Northern Trust Corp now owns 6,977,625 shares of the medical research company’s stock worth $1,875,306,000 after purchasing an additional 255,463 shares during the period. 76.50% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

Several equities analysts have recently commented on AMGN shares. UBS Group lowered their target price on shares of Amgen from $314.00 to $284.00 and set a “neutral” rating on the stock in a report on Wednesday. Raymond James assumed coverage on shares of Amgen in a research note on Thursday, March 28th. They set a “market perform” rating on the stock. TD Cowen cut their price objective on shares of Amgen from $370.00 to $360.00 and set a “buy” rating on the stock in a research report on Wednesday. Morgan Stanley cut their price objective on shares of 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, The Goldman Sachs Group upped their price target on shares of Amgen from $313.00 to $350.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a report on Wednesday, February 7th. Ten investment analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and ten have given a buy rating to the company’s stock. According to data from MarketBeat.com, the stock currently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $296.95.

Amgen Price Performance

AMGN stock traded up $4.66 during midday trading on Friday, reaching $267.41. The stock had a trading volume of 1,312,157 shares, compared to its average volume of 2,831,060. The company’s fifty day simple moving average is $277.34 and its 200 day simple moving average is $281.24. 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 company has a market cap of $143.31 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 21.22, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 2.46 and a beta of 0.58. Amgen Inc. has a 52-week low of $211.71 and a 52-week high of $329.72.

Amgen (NASDAQ:AMGN) last posted its quarterly earnings results on Tuesday, February 6th. The medical research company reported $4.71 EPS for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $4.66 by $0.05. The business had revenue of $8.20 billion for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $8.13 billion. Amgen had a return on equity of 154.27% and a net margin of 23.83%. The company’s quarterly revenue was up 19.8% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same quarter in the previous year, the firm earned $4.09 EPS. As a group, sell-side analysts predict that Amgen Inc. will post 19.45 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Amgen Dividend Announcement

The company also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Friday, June 7th. Shareholders of record on Friday, May 17th will be given a $2.25 dividend. This represents a $9.00 annualized dividend and a yield of 3.37%. The ex-dividend date is Thursday, May 16th. Amgen’s dividend payout ratio is currently 72.06%.

Amgen Profile

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.