Peregrine Asset Advisers Inc. Increases Position in Amgen Inc. (NASDAQ:AMGN)

Peregrine Asset Advisers Inc. boosted its holdings in shares of Amgen Inc. (NASDAQ:AMGN) by 4.4% in the fourth quarter, Holdings Channel.com reports. The fund owned 4,700 shares of the medical research company’s stock after acquiring an additional 200 shares during the quarter. Peregrine Asset Advisers Inc.’s holdings in Amgen were worth $1,225,000 at the end of the most recent quarter.

Several other hedge funds also recently bought and sold shares of the business. Capital Performance Advisors LLP purchased a new stake in shares of Amgen during the third quarter valued at $25,000. Centricity Wealth Management LLC purchased a new position in Amgen in the 4th quarter worth about $25,000. Legacy Investment Solutions LLC purchased a new stake in Amgen in the 3rd quarter valued at about $29,000. Heck Capital Advisors LLC bought a new position in Amgen in the 4th quarter worth about $36,000. Finally, PrairieView Partners LLC grew its stake in Amgen by 118.3% in the 4th quarter. PrairieView Partners LLC now owns 179 shares of the medical research company’s stock worth $46,000 after acquiring an additional 97 shares in the last quarter. Institutional investors own 76.50% of the company’s stock.

Insider Buying and Selling

In related news, EVP Murdo Gordon sold 8,771 shares of Amgen stock in a transaction that occurred on Tuesday, February 11th. The stock was sold at an average price of $294.79, for a total transaction of $2,585,603.09. Following the completion of the transaction, the executive vice president now directly owns 44,186 shares in the company, valued at approximately $13,025,590.94. This trade represents a 16.56 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which can be accessed through this hyperlink. Also, SVP Nancy A. Grygiel sold 1,589 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Wednesday, February 5th. The stock was sold at an average price of $304.47, for a total value of $483,802.83. Following the completion of the sale, the senior vice president now owns 7,210 shares in the company, valued at approximately $2,195,228.70. This represents a 18.06 % decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. In the last quarter, insiders have sold 69,341 shares of company stock worth $20,644,335. 0.69% of the stock is owned by company insiders.

Analyst Ratings Changes

A number of brokerages recently issued reports on AMGN. Royal Bank of Canada reissued an “outperform” rating and issued a $324.00 price objective on shares of Amgen in a research note on Friday, January 24th. Deutsche Bank Aktiengesellschaft dropped their price target on Amgen from $305.00 to $285.00 in a research report on Wednesday, November 27th. Leerink Partners decreased their price objective on Amgen from $349.00 to $302.00 in a report on Wednesday, November 27th. Piper Sandler increased their target price on shares of Amgen from $310.00 to $329.00 and gave the stock an “overweight” rating in a report on Monday, February 10th. Finally, StockNews.com lowered shares of Amgen from a “strong-buy” rating to a “buy” rating in a report on Wednesday, December 18th. Two equities research analysts have rated the stock with a sell rating, ten have assigned a hold rating, twelve have given a buy rating and one has assigned a strong buy rating to the company. Based on data from MarketBeat, Amgen currently has an average rating of “Hold” and an average target price of $314.09.

Amgen Price Performance

Shares of AMGN stock opened at $303.01 on Friday. Amgen Inc. has a fifty-two week low of $253.30 and a fifty-two week high of $346.85. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 9.62, a quick ratio of 0.95 and a current ratio of 1.26. The firm has a market capitalization of $162.78 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 40.13, a PEG ratio of 2.55 and a beta of 0.56. The stock’s 50-day simple moving average is $276.27 and its 200-day simple moving average is $300.59.

Amgen (NASDAQ:AMGN) last released its earnings results on Tuesday, February 4th. The medical research company reported $5.31 earnings per share for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $5.04 by $0.27. Amgen had a net margin of 12.24% and a return on equity of 176.32%. As a group, equities analysts forecast that Amgen Inc. will post 20.6 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Amgen Increases Dividend

The company also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Friday, March 7th. Investors of record on Friday, February 14th will be given a $2.38 dividend. The ex-dividend date is Friday, February 14th. This represents a $9.52 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 3.14%. This is a positive change from Amgen’s previous quarterly dividend of $2.25. Amgen’s dividend payout ratio is currently 126.09%.

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.