DaVita Inc. (NYSE:DVA) Sees Significant Growth in Short Interest

DaVita Inc. (NYSE:DVA) saw a large growth in short interest in the month of December. As of December 15th, there was short interest totalling 4,040,000 shares, a growth of 6.9% from the November 30th total of 3,780,000 shares. Approximately 5.2% of the shares of the company are sold short. Based on an average daily volume of 770,300 shares, the short-interest ratio is presently 5.2 days.

Institutional Investors Weigh In On DaVita

A number of hedge funds and other institutional investors have recently modified their holdings of the stock. Transcendent Capital Group LLC bought a new stake in DaVita in the third quarter valued at approximately $25,000. Blue Trust Inc. raised its holdings in DaVita by 56.4% during the 3rd quarter. Blue Trust Inc. now owns 330 shares of the company’s stock valued at $54,000 after buying an additional 119 shares during the last quarter. Quarry LP purchased a new stake in DaVita during the 3rd quarter valued at $60,000. Point72 Hong Kong Ltd bought a new stake in DaVita in the 2nd quarter worth $68,000. Finally, ORG Wealth Partners LLC purchased a new position in shares of DaVita in the third quarter valued at about $97,000. Institutional investors own 90.12% of the company’s stock.

DaVita Stock Down 0.2 %

Shares of DVA opened at $149.55 on Thursday. DaVita has a 1 year low of $103.40 and a 1 year high of $169.51. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 15.78, a current ratio of 1.37 and a quick ratio of 1.33. The stock has a 50 day simple moving average of $155.42 and a two-hundred day simple moving average of $151.51. The firm has a market cap of $12.26 billion, a P/E ratio of 16.13, a P/E/G ratio of 0.86 and a beta of 0.90.

DaVita (NYSE:DVA) last released its earnings results on Tuesday, October 29th. The company reported $2.59 EPS for the quarter, missing the consensus estimate of $2.76 by ($0.17). The business had revenue of $3.26 billion for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $3.25 billion. DaVita had a net margin of 6.53% and a return on equity of 88.18%. DaVita’s revenue for the quarter was up 4.6% on a year-over-year basis. During the same period in the prior year, the business posted $2.85 EPS. On average, analysts forecast that DaVita will post 9.71 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

DVA has been the topic of a number of research analyst reports. Barclays boosted their target price on shares of DaVita from $150.00 to $164.00 and gave the company an “equal weight” rating in a research note on Thursday, October 31st. Truist Financial raised their price objective on shares of DaVita from $165.00 to $175.00 and gave the company a “hold” rating in a research report on Monday, October 7th. One research analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, three have issued a hold rating and two have given a buy rating to the company’s stock. According to data from MarketBeat, the company presently has a consensus rating of “Hold” and a consensus target price of $161.80.

DaVita Company Profile

DaVita Inc provides kidney dialysis services for patients suffering from chronic kidney failure in the United States. The company operates kidney dialysis centers and provides related lab services in outpatient dialysis centers. It also offers outpatient, hospital inpatient, and home-based hemodialysis services; operates clinical laboratories that provide routine laboratory tests for dialysis and other physician-prescribed laboratory tests for ESRD patients; and management and administrative services to outpatient dialysis centers.