Gilead Sciences Inc. (NASDAQ: GILD) is set to report its fourth-quarter financial results after the markets close on Tuesday. The consensus estimates call for $2.61 in earnings per share (EPS) and $7.15 billion in revenue. The same period of last year reportedly had EPS of $3.32 and $8.51 billion in revenue.
This company has been at the center of many drug pricing talks recently. The ongoing growth days of Gilead have come to a peak, and many investors seem to be worried about how to price in a breakup or a major acquisition — or both.
Another consideration is that Gilead has now screened as a dirt cheap stock among biotech and pharma for two years now. There are more than one or two reasons. And note that Gilead’s pipeline is valued at almost nothing at the current price. Currently, Gilead trades at just below seven times next year’s earnings.
There is the notion that Gilead looks cheaper on the surface than major pharma stocks like Merck and Pfizer. Still, Jefferies did recently name Gilead among its cheap biopharma picks for 2017.
A few analysts weighed in on Gilead prior to the earnings report:
- William Blair reiterated an Outperform rating.
- Citigroup has an $87 price target.
- Needham reiterated a Hold rating.
- Cowen reiterated an Outperform rating with a $100 price target.
- Jefferies reiterated a Buy rating with a $93 price target.
- BMO Capital Markets reiterated a Market Perform rating with an $88 price target.
- Goldman Sachs reiterated a Hold rating with an $81 target price.
- Stifel reiterated a Buy rating with a $100 price target.
- RBC reiterated a Buy rating with a $90 price target.
So far in 2017, Gilead has performed more or less in line with the broad markets, with the stock up about 1%. However, in the past 52 weeks the stock is actually down about 13%.
Shares of Gilead were trading at $72.65 on Tuesday, with a consensus analyst price target of $93.36 and a 52-week trading range of $69.78 to $103.10.
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