CVS Health stock: buy or sell?
Updated on:
September 20th, 2019
3
CVS Health Corporation, together with its subsidiaries, provides integrated pharmacy health care services. It operates through Pharmacy Services and Retail\u002FLTC segments.
Should I buy CVS Health stock?
Make a decision about when to buy or sell stocks is one of the hardest parts of being a trader or investor. Following a trading plan helps to make decisions easier, quicker and with less hesitations. At Stocks2.com, we like to use very simple but trusted and powerful trend following trading strategies. Simple things usually work the best.Currently, CVS Health stock doesn't match any of these trading strategies, so our recommendation is not to buy.
| Buy setup | Elegible |
|---|---|
| New all-time high | No |
| New 52 week high | No |
| Price crossing up 200d MA | No |
| 100d MA crossing up 200d MA | No |
Is CVS Health stock a buy?
Everyday, hundreds of stock ratings are posted by financial analysts to indicate a particular stock's attractiveness.
At Stocks2.com, we collected 15 ratings published for CVS stock in the last 30 days. The general sentiment of these ratings is bullish for CVS stock, with 9 positive ratings.| Date | Analyst / Broker | Previous rating | Current rating |
| 2019-9-12 | Deutsche Bank | n/a | Buy |
| 2019-9-12 | Bank of America | n/a | Buy |
| 2019-8-8 | Citigroup | n/a | Buy |
| 2019-8-27 | Cowen | n/a | Outperform |
| 2019-5-2 | UBS Group | Buy | Sell |
| 2019-5-2 | UBS Group | Sell | Sell |
| 2019-5-2 | Citigroup | n/a | Buy |
| 2019-4-29 | Morgan Stanley | Overweight | Overweight |
| 2019-4-29 | Credit Suisse Group | Outperform | Neutral |
| 2019-4-18 | Raymond James | Strong-Buy | Strong-Buy |
| 2019-4-15 | Oppenheimer | Outperform | Market Perform |
| 2019-4-10 | SunTrust Banks | n/a | n/a |
| 2019-4-10 | Bank of America | n/a | Buy |
| 2019-3-6 | Citigroup | n/a | Buy |
| 2019-3-12 | Sanford C. Bernstein | n/a | Outperform |
CVS Health stock analysis
Daily outlook
Shares of CVS Health stepped up a beatiful 1.05% and closed at $64.30.
CVS Health shares stepped up 1.05% to $64.30 today. CVS shows a short term strength with several rising tops and rising bottoms. In the very short term, on Sep 18th it marked a new bottom at $62.74 that should act a support if CVS Health starts a trading flat base in the range of $62.74 - $65.25 If CVS Health breakouts over $65.25 with average or higher volume, this would be a signal that the uptrend resumes. Since last July when SMA50d and SMA100d crossed up, CVS price gained $8.30 per share (14.82%).
Weekly outlook
CVS Health ended this week at $64.30 and stayed constant a slightly good 0.37%. This week was the fourth green week in a row. Early August CVS rocketed an amazing 6.04% in just one week.
CVS Health 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. Since price and SMA40w lines crossed up by mid August, CVS climbed $5.01 (8.45%).
CVS Health stock price history
CVS Health stock historical price chart
CVS stock reached 52-week highs on November at $80.04, and all-time highs 2015-07-29 with a price of 102.72.
CVS Health stock price target is $73.80
Predicting the price evolution of a stock or any financial instrument in a reliable and repeatable way is probably impossible. However, many stock price predictions are published every day by banks, financial institutions and independent analysts. The accuracy of these stock price predictions is not very high, and you should not blindly believe and make decisions only based on what this ratings or price target predictions say. For the last 30 days we found 12 price predictions for CVS Health stock:| Date | Analyst / Broker | Action | Previous target | Current target | Diff |
| 2019-9-12 | Deutsche Bank | Initiates | n/a | $91.00 | - |
| 2019-9-12 | Bank of America | Raises Target | $72.00 | $75.00 | 4.2% |
| 2019-8-8 | Citigroup | Reiterates | $68.00 | $72.00 | 5.9% |
| 2019-8-27 | Cowen | Reiterates | $69.00 | $76.00 | 10.1% |
| 2019-5-2 | UBS Group | Raises Target | $67.00 | $74.00 | 10.4% |
| 2019-5-2 | UBS Group | Lowers Target | $74.00 | $67.00 | -9.5% |
| 2019-5-2 | Citigroup | Set Price Target | n/a | $74.00 | - |
| 2019-4-29 | Morgan Stanley | Lowers Target | $92.00 | $74.00 | -19.6% |
| 2019-4-18 | Raymond James | Lowers Target | $90.00 | $75.00 | -16.7% |
| 2019-4-10 | SunTrust Banks | Lowers Target | $85.00 | $65.00 | -23.5% |
| 2019-4-10 | Bank of America | Lowers Target | $82.00 | $74.00 | -9.8% |
| 2019-3-6 | Citigroup | Lowers Target | $94.00 | $68.00 | -27.7% |
| (in average) | $79.30 | $73.80 | -7.0% |
Financials and fundamental analysis
Earnings date and Earnings per Share
On February, CVS Health reported its latest financial data, posting a slightly fine gain for the Earnings per Share (EPS) ratio. Analyst expected $2.07 per share, but CVS Health posted $2.14.| Quarter | Reporting date | Estimated EPS | Actual EPS | Surprise |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2017-Q2 | - | n/a | 1.07 | n/a |
| 2017-Q3 | 2017-11-06 | 1.49 | 1.5 | 0.7% |
| 2017-Q4 | 2018-02-08 | 1.88 | 1.92 | 2.1% |
| 2018-Q1 | 2018-05-02 | 1.39 | 1.48 | 6.5% |
| 2018-Q2 | 2018-08-08 | 1.61 | 1.69 | 5.0% |
| 2018-Q3 | 2018-11-06 | 1.71 | 1.73 | 1.2% |
| 2018-Q4 | 2019-02-20 | 2.07 | 2.14 | 3.4% |
| 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
Compared to 2017, last anual revenues report draw a beatiful gain of 5.30% to $194,579.00 M dollars. When comparing 2018 vs 2017, however, profit margin (that is, the net income divided by revenues) declined a -3.89% to -0.31%.| Year | Sales | YoY | Income/(margin) | YoY |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2013 | $126,760 M | - | $4,600 M3.6% | - |
| 2014 | $139,367 M | 9.95% | $4,644 M3.3% | 0.96% |
| 2015 | $153,290 M | 9.99% | $5,237 M3.4% | 12.77% |
| 2016 | $177,526 M | 15.81% | $5,317 M3.0% | 1.53% |
| 2017 | $184,786 M | 4.09% | $6,622 M3.6% | 24.54% |
| 2018 | $194,579 M | 5.30% | $-594.00 M-0.3% | -108.97% |
Quarterly financial results
CVS Health posted $54,909.00 million in sales for 2018-Q4, a 16.16% improvement compared to previous quarter. Reported quarter income marked $-419.00 million with a profit margin of -0.76%. Profit margin decreased a -3.70% compared to previous quarter when profit margin was 2.94%. When comparing sales to same quarter last year, CVS Health sales marked an extraordinary growth and climbed a 13.48%. Looking back to recent quarterly results, CVS Health posted 3 negative quarters in a row.| Quarter | Sales1 | QoQ2 | Income1/(margin) | QoQ2 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2017-Q2 | $45,690 M | - | $1,090.00 M2.4% | - |
| 2017-Q3 | $46,181 M | 1.07% | $1,285.00 M2.8% | 17.89% |
| 2017-Q4 | $48,385 M | 4.77% | $3,287.00 M6.8% | 155.80% |
| 2018-Q1 | $45,693 M | -5.56% | $998.00 M2.2% | -69.64% |
| 2018-Q2 | $46,708 M | 2.22% | $-2,563.00 M-5.5% | -356.81% |
| 2018-Q3 | $47,269 M | 1.20% | $1,390.00 M2.9% | -154.23% |
| 2018-Q4 | $54,909 M | 16.16% | $-419.00 M-0.8% | -130.14% |
| 2019-Q1 | $61,646 M | 12.27% | $1,421.00 M2.3% | -439.14% |
CVS Health ownership
When you are planning to invest in a stock, it's always worth to check its ownership structure.CVS Health shares owned by insiders (that is, founders, CEO, CTO, main executives or other management staff) currently counts a 0.24% of all shares.
Bearish positions for CVS stock account 0.00%, no big difference from last month.
The following table compares ownership indicators for other stocks related to CVS Health:
| CVS | PETS | WBA | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Market cap | $83.6 B | $342.5 M | $49.7 B |
| Total shares | 1,300.0 M | 20.2 M | 903.1 M |
| Float shares | 1,300.0 M | 17.2 M | 753.6 M |
| - Institutional holdings (%) | 83.8% | 104.8% | 66.4% |
| - Insider holdings (%) | 0.2% | 3.8% | 16.1% |
| Shares in short selling | 0.0% | 0.0% | 0.0% |
CVS Health summary
| Friday, September 20th, 2019 | |
|---|---|
| Open | $64.18 |
| Close | $64.30 |
| Day range | $64.01 - $64.69 |
| Previous close | $63.63 |
| Session gain | 1.05% |
| Average true range | $1.14 |
| 50d mov avg | $59.38 |
| 100d mov avg | $56.61 |
| 200d mov avg | $58.40 |
| Daily pattern | lb03a |
| Weekly pattern | lt06a |
CVS Health performance
To better understand CVS Health performance you must compare its gains with other related stocks in same sector or industry. We compared CVS Health against PetMed Express and Walgreens Boots Alliance in the following table:| Stock | 3m | 6m | 12m |
|---|---|---|---|
| CVSCVS Health | 20.93% | 16.89% | -16.50% |
| PETSPetMed Express | 10.19% | -15.61% | -50.60% |
| WBAWalgreens Boots A... | 5.83% | -10.32% | -22.44% |
CVS Health competitors
Choosing a list of competitors for CVS Health it's a hard job. We selected 2 public companies that are related to and can be considered as competitors of CVS Health:Latest CVS Health stock news
- InvestorPlaceHere’s The Not-So-Crazy Speculative Case for CVS Health StockJuly 24, 2019
- InvestorPlaceIf Everything is Going Wrong for CVS Health Stock, is That a Buy Signal?July 10, 2019
- InvestorPlace3 Big Stock Charts for Wednesday: CVS Health, Pfizer and WeyerhaeuserJuly 3, 2019
- InvestorPlaceCVS Health Stock Has Cannibalized ItselfJune 21, 2019
- Seeking Alpha3 Reasons CVS Health's Future Looks Bright Despite Current ChallengesJune 13, 2019