First Merchants Corp Sells 347 Shares of Cencora, Inc. $COR

First Merchants Corp trimmed its stake in Cencora, Inc. (NYSE:COR) by 15.0% in the second quarter, Holdings Channel reports. The firm owned 1,965 shares of the company’s stock after selling 347 shares during the quarter. First Merchants Corp’s holdings in Cencora were worth $589,000 as of its most recent SEC filing.

Other hedge funds have also recently bought and sold shares of the company. Cornerstone Planning Group LLC grew its stake in Cencora by 106.7% in the first quarter. Cornerstone Planning Group LLC now owns 93 shares of the company’s stock valued at $26,000 after purchasing an additional 48 shares in the last quarter. Hoey Investments Inc. bought a new position in Cencora in the first quarter valued at approximately $28,000. Costello Asset Management INC bought a new position in Cencora in the first quarter valued at approximately $28,000. University of Texas Texas AM Investment Management Co. bought a new position in Cencora in the first quarter valued at approximately $39,000. Finally, Golden State Wealth Management LLC grew its stake in Cencora by 157.6% in the first quarter. Golden State Wealth Management LLC now owns 170 shares of the company’s stock valued at $47,000 after purchasing an additional 104 shares in the last quarter. 97.52% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

COR has been the subject of several research analyst reports. Morgan Stanley set a $330.00 target price on Cencora and gave the stock an “equal weight” rating in a research note on Wednesday, July 16th. Weiss Ratings reiterated a “buy (b)” rating on shares of Cencora in a research note on Wednesday. Wells Fargo & Company lifted their target price on Cencora from $337.00 to $354.00 and gave the stock an “overweight” rating in a research note on Wednesday, August 13th. Jefferies Financial Group lifted their target price on Cencora from $275.00 to $300.00 and gave the stock a “hold” rating in a research note on Monday, June 30th. Finally, Evercore ISI set a $340.00 target price on Cencora in a research note on Wednesday. Nine equities research analysts have rated the stock with a Buy rating and three have given a Hold rating to the company. Based on data from MarketBeat, the stock presently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $320.00.

Cencora Stock Performance

COR opened at $314.14 on Friday. The business has a fifty day simple moving average of $296.39 and a 200 day simple moving average of $291.26. The company has a market capitalization of $60.91 billion, a PE ratio of 32.32, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 1.45 and a beta of 0.63. Cencora, Inc. has a 1 year low of $220.82 and a 1 year high of $315.23. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 3.64, a current ratio of 0.90 and a quick ratio of 0.53.

Cencora (NYSE:COR) last released its quarterly earnings results on Wednesday, August 6th. The company reported $4.00 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $3.79 by $0.21. The business had revenue of $80.66 billion during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $80.34 billion. Cencora had a return on equity of 267.36% and a net margin of 0.60%.The firm’s quarterly revenue was up 8.7% on a year-over-year basis. During the same period in the previous year, the company posted $3.34 EPS. Research analysts expect that Cencora, Inc. will post 15.37 EPS for the current year.

Cencora Dividend Announcement

The company also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Wednesday, September 3rd. Investors of record on Friday, August 15th were paid a $0.55 dividend. The ex-dividend date was Friday, August 15th. This represents a $2.20 annualized dividend and a yield of 0.7%. Cencora’s payout ratio is 22.63%.

Insider Buying and Selling at Cencora

In other Cencora news, Chairman Steven H. Collis sold 31,350 shares of Cencora stock in a transaction on Tuesday, September 16th. The stock was sold at an average price of $289.86, for a total value of $9,087,111.00. Following the completion of the transaction, the chairman directly owned 305,913 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $88,671,942.18. The trade was a 9.30% decrease in their position. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available at the SEC website. Also, CEO Robert P. Mauch sold 5,097 shares of Cencora stock in a transaction on Thursday, September 18th. The shares were sold at an average price of $290.00, for a total value of $1,478,130.00. Following the completion of the transaction, the chief executive officer directly owned 39,274 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $11,389,460. This represents a 11.49% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders sold a total of 55,993 shares of company stock valued at $16,292,923 over the last 90 days. 10.80% of the stock is currently owned by corporate insiders.

Cencora Company Profile

Cencora, Inc sources and distributes pharmaceutical products. The company's U.S. Healthcare Solutions segment distributes pharmaceuticals, over-the-counter healthcare products, home healthcare supplies and equipment, and related services to acute care hospitals and health systems, independent and chain retail pharmacies, mail order pharmacies, medical clinics, long-term care and alternate site pharmacies, and other customers; provides pharmacy management, staffing, and other consulting services; supply management software to retail and institutional healthcare providers; packaging solutions to various institutional and retail healthcare providers; clinical trial support, product post-approval, and commercialization support services; data analytics, outcomes research, and additional services for biotechnology and pharmaceutical manufacturers; pharmaceuticals, vaccines, parasiticides, diagnostics, micro feed ingredients, and other products to the companion animal and production animal markets; and sales force services to manufacturers.