Astrazeneca stock: buy or sell?
Updated on:
August 23rd, 2019
5
AstraZeneca PLC develops, manufactures, and commercializes prescription medicines for the treatment of oncology, cardiovascular and metabolic, respiratory, infection, gastrointestinal, and neuroscience diseases worldwide.
Should I buy Astrazeneca stock?
Make a decision about when to buy or sell stocks is one of the hardest parts of being a trader or investor. Trading strategies are meant for helping you in the decision process of what stocks to choose and when is the best moment to buy them. At Stocks2.com, we like to use very simple but trusted and powerful trend following trading strategies. Simple things usually work the best.Currently, 2 buy setups match with Astrazeneca stock right now:
| Buy setup | Elegible |
|---|---|
| New all-time high | Yes |
| New 52 week high | Yes |
| Price crossing up 200d MA | No |
| 100d MA crossing up 200d MA | No |
Is Astrazeneca stock a buy?
Banks and financial institutions publish stock ratings everyday.
At Stocks2.com, we detected 15 ratings published for AZN stock in the last month.| Date | Analyst / Broker | Previous rating | Current rating |
| 2019-8-21 | UBS Group | n/a | Sell |
| 2019-8-21 | JPMorgan Chase & Co. | n/a | Buy |
| 2019-8-20 | Shore Capital | n/a | Buy |
| 2019-8-20 | Liberum Capital | n/a | Hold |
| 2019-8-20 | Goldman Sachs Group | n/a | Sell |
| 2019-8-16 | Barclays | n/a | Overweight |
| 2019-8-15 | JPMorgan Chase & Co. | n/a | Buy |
| 2019-8-14 | UBS Group | n/a | Sell |
| 2019-8-14 | Liberum Capital | n/a | Hold |
| 2019-8-14 | Argus | n/a | Buy |
| 2019-4-2 | UBS Group | Neutral | Sell |
| 2019-4-1 | Cowen | Market Perform | Outperform |
| 2019-3-19 | Main First Bank | n/a | Buy |
| 2019-2-5 | Exane BNP Paribas | n/a | Outperform |
| 2019-2-5 | BNP Paribas | Outperform | Outperform |
Astrazeneca stock analysis
Daily outlook
Astrazeneca fell -1.83% today to $44.58 after topping to all time highs on August 21st.
Astrazeneca fell -1.83% today to $44.58 after topping to all time highs on Aug/21. On June AZN price bounced up over the SMA of 200 days demonstrating to be a significant support for this stock. From a daily perspective, AZN is in a short term uptrend after plotting its last bottom ($43.80, on Aug/14) higher than the previous bottom, and its last top ($45.69, on August/21) also over the previous top. Now trading in between its last bottom and last top AZN might consolidate in a plain range, waiting to break out over $45.69 or down under $43.80. Since last Jul/30 when SMA50d and SMA100d crossed up, AZN price gained $0.64 per share (1.46%). On August 21st, AZN hit a new all time high, pushing higher than on Aug/9 tops. Check different trading setups that use ATHs as triggers.
Weekly outlook
Shares of Astrazeneca ended this week at $44.58 after reaching a new all time high ($45.69) and grew a slightly good 0.54%. Late July AZN boosted an astounding 7.78% in just one week.
Astrazeneca stock is trading in the range of its last top and last bottom. Loosing would mean breaking the current uptrend. Breakdowns under last bottom are selling point signals for some trading strategies. Early June AZN price bounced up over the SMA of 40 weeks that acted as support stopping new slides. Since late July when SMA10w and SMA20w crossed up, AZN price gained $4.87 per share (12.26%).
Astrazeneca stock price history
Astrazeneca IPO was on May 12th, 1993 at $0.44 per share1. Since then, AZN stock surged a 10,031.80%, with an average of 385.80% per year. If you had invested right after AZN's IPO a $1,000 in Astrazeneca stock in 1993, it would worth $100,318.00 today.
1: Adjusted price after possible price splits or reverse-splits.
Astrazeneca stock historical price chart
AZN stock reached all-time highs on August 21st with a price of $45.69.
Astrazeneca stock price target is $49.00
Nobody can reliably foresee how stock prices may evolve in the future. However, many stock price predictions are published every day by banks, financial institutions and independent analysts. You should not follow the analysts' AZN stock price predictions in the hope that they will be met as they may be wrong and not met. We found 2 price forecasts for AZN stock posted in the last month:| Date | Analyst / Broker | Action | Previous target | Current target | Diff |
| 2019-8-14 | Argus | Raises Target | n/a | $50.00 | - |
| 2019-4-1 | Cowen | Upgrades | $42.00 | $48.00 | 14.3% |
| (in average) | $42.00 | $49.00 | 17.0% |
Financials and fundamental analysis
Earnings date and Earnings per Share
Astrazeneca presented exceptional results for 2018-Q4 on February. Astrazeneca boosted Earnings per Share (EPS) by 116.40%, beating experts estimates of $0.73. Astrazeneca posted $1.58.| Quarter | Reporting date | Estimated EPS | Actual EPS | Surprise |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2017-Q2 | - | n/a | 0.53 | n/a |
| 2017-Q3 | - | n/a | 0.71 | n/a |
| 2017-Q4 | - | n/a | 1 | n/a |
| 2018-Q1 | 2018-05-18 | 0.28 | 0.48 | 71.4% |
| 2018-Q2 | 2018-07-26 | 0.31 | 0.69 | 122.6% |
| 2018-Q3 | 2018-11-08 | 0.33 | 0.71 | 115.2% |
| 2018-Q4 | 2019-02-14 | 0.73 | 1.58 | 116.4% |
| 2019-Q1 | - | n/a | n/a | n/a |
| 2019-Q2 | - | n/a | n/a | n/a |
| 2019-Q3 | - | n/a | n/a | n/a |
Annual financial results
In 2018, Astrazeneca annual turnover decreased a lame -1.67% to $22,090.00 million USD from $22,465.00 marked in 2017. Aligned with this, its income margin (compared to revenues) depreciated to 9.76%, that is $2,155.00 million.| Year | Sales | YoY | Income/(margin) | YoY |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2013 | $16,450 M | - | $1,640 M10.0% | - |
| 2014 | $26,095 M | 58.63% | $1,233 M4.7% | -24.82% |
| 2015 | $24,708 M | -5.32% | $2,825 M11.4% | 129.12% |
| 2016 | $23,002 M | -6.90% | $3,499 M15.2% | 23.86% |
| 2017 | $22,465 M | -2.33% | $3,001 M13.4% | -14.23% |
| 2018 | $22,090 M | -1.67% | $2,155 M9.8% | -28.19% |
Quarterly financial results
Astrazeneca reported $6,417.00 M in sales for 2018-Q4, a 20.17% improvement compared to previous quarter. Reported quarter earnings marked $1,034.00 M with a profit margin of 16.11%. Profit margin jumped a 8.04% compared to previous quarter when profit margin was 8.07%. When comparing turnover to same quarter last year, Astrazeneca sales marked a phenomenal gain and rocketed a 11.08%. Looking back to recent quarterly results, Astrazeneca posted 2 negative quarters in a row.| Quarter | Sales1 | QoQ2 | Income1/(margin) | QoQ2 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2017-Q2 | $3,950 M | - | $373 M9.4% | - |
| 2017-Q3 | $6,232 M | 57.77% | $686 M11.0% | 84.13% |
| 2017-Q4 | $5,777 M | -7.30% | $1,301 M22.5% | 89.65% |
| 2018-Q1 | $5,178 M | -10.37% | $340 M6.6% | -73.87% |
| 2018-Q2 | $5,155 M | -0.44% | $350 M6.8% | 2.94% |
| 2018-Q3 | $5,340 M | 3.59% | $431 M8.1% | 23.14% |
| 2018-Q4 | $6,417 M | 20.17% | $1,034 M16.1% | 139.91% |
| 2019-Q1 | $5,491 M | -14.43% | $593 M10.8% | -42.65% |
Astrazeneca ownership
When you are planning to buy a company, it's always worth to check its ownership structure.Management staff in all public traded companies that hold equity is required to report every transaction to the SEC. For Astrazeneca, 0.01% of all outstanding shares are owned by its staff.
In case of Astrazeneca stock, 19.37% of its shares are held by institutions (mutual funds, pension funds, big banks and other large financial institutions). Bearish positions for AZN stock account 0.00%, no big difference from last month.
The following table compares ownership indicators for other stocks related to Astrazeneca:
| AZN | ABT | BIIB | BMY | CELG | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Market cap | $116.8 B | $148.5 B | $45.0 B | $78.0 B | $65.9 B |
| Total shares | 2,620.0 M | 1,760.0 M | 193.9 M | 1,630.0 M | 701.0 M |
| Float shares | 2,620.0 M | 1,750.0 M | 184.0 M | 1,630.0 M | 706.3 M |
| - Institutional holdings (%) | 19.4% | 76.5% | 93.4% | 75.0% | 77.6% |
| - Insider holdings (%) | 0.0% | 0.7% | 0.5% | 0.1% | 0.2% |
| Shares in short selling | 0.0% | 0.0% | 0.0% | 0.0% | 0.0% |
Astrazeneca summary
| Friday, August 23rd, 2019 | |
|---|---|
| Open | $45.28 |
| Close | $44.58 |
| Day range | $44.50 - $45.67 |
| Previous close | $45.41 |
| Session gain | -1.83% |
| Average true range | $0.73 |
| 50d mov avg | $41.99 |
| 100d mov avg | $40.15 |
| 200d mov avg | $39.26 |
| Daily pattern | lt06a |
| Weekly pattern | lt06a |
Astrazeneca performance
Stocks performance is always measured in comparision to the market or competitors and related stocks in the same industry. In the following table, we compare Astrazeneca to , Biogen, Bristol-Myers Squibb, Celgene, GlaxoSmithKline, , Eli Lilly and, Merck, Pfizer and :| Stock | 3m | 6m | 12m |
|---|---|---|---|
| AZNAstrazeneca | 15.43% | 12.55% | 20.29% |
| ABT | 10.01% | 11.69% | 29.78% |
| BIIBBiogen | 2.20% | -28.67% | -32.21% |
| BMYBristol-Myers Squ... | 3.15% | -4.45% | -17.61% |
| CELGCelgene | -1.31% | 5.44% | 4.51% |
| GSKGlaxoSmithKline | 3.70% | 3.99% | 4.92% |
| JNJ | -5.46% | -2.60% | -0.86% |
| LLYEli Lilly and | -3.90% | -8.98% | 7.83% |
| MRKMerck | 5.41% | 6.65% | 26.49% |
| PFEPfizer | -15.59% | -16.85% | -14.36% |
| SNY | 0.71% | 7.72% | 1.79% |
Astrazeneca competitors
We picked a few stocks to conform a list of Astrazeneca competitors to review if you are interested in investing in AZN:- (ABT)
- Biogen (BIIB)
- Bristol-Myers Squibb (BMY)
- Celgene (CELG)
- GlaxoSmithKline (GSK)
- (JNJ)
- Eli Lilly and (LLY)
- Merck (MRK)
- Pfizer (PFE)
- (SNY)
Latest Astrazeneca stock news
- Seeking AlphaAstraZeneca Calquence CLL Data Sets It Up For Regulatory Submissions In 2019June 26, 2019
- Seeking AlphaAn FDA Win For AstraZeneca Shifts To An Expanded Label In The Type 2 Diabetes MarketMay 21, 2019
- Seeking AlphaGlaxoSmithKline & AstraZeneca, Two Brexit Cancellation Income PlaysApril 29, 2019
- InvestorPlaceIs AstraZeneca Stock Worth Buying Before Earnings?April 10, 2019
- InvestorPlaceAstraZeneca News: Why AZN Stock Is Sliding Lower TodayMarch 29, 2019