Investors Purchase High Volume of Call Options on Avantor (NYSE:AVTR)

Avantor, Inc. (NYSE:AVTR) was the recipient of unusually large options trading activity on Monday. Traders acquired 7,720 call options on the company. This represents an increase of 27% compared to the average volume of 6,085 call options.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

A number of equities research analysts have recently issued reports on AVTR shares. Royal Bank of Canada reissued an “outperform” rating and issued a $34.00 price target on shares of Avantor in a research note on Thursday, September 26th. Stifel Nicolaus boosted their price target on shares of Avantor from $27.00 to $28.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a research note on Monday, July 29th. Robert W. Baird boosted their price target on shares of Avantor from $26.00 to $27.00 and gave the company an “outperform” rating in a research note on Monday, July 29th. Barclays boosted their price target on shares of Avantor from $25.00 to $28.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a research note on Monday, July 29th. Finally, Citigroup downgraded shares of Avantor from a “buy” rating to a “neutral” rating and reduced their price target for the company from $30.00 to $23.00 in a research note on Wednesday, July 10th. Three equities research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and twelve have assigned a buy rating to the stock. According to MarketBeat.com, the company has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus price target of $28.00.

Insider Buying and Selling

In related news, CAO Steven W. Eck sold 3,525 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction dated Thursday, September 5th. The shares were sold at an average price of $25.06, for a total transaction of $88,336.50. Following the transaction, the chief accounting officer now directly owns 29,544 shares in the company, valued at approximately $740,372.64. The trade was a 0.00 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which can be accessed through the SEC website. 1.50% of the stock is currently owned by company insiders.

Institutional Trading of Avantor

A number of hedge funds have recently made changes to their positions in AVTR. Creative Planning grew its position in shares of Avantor by 54.0% during the third quarter. Creative Planning now owns 28,136 shares of the company’s stock worth $728,000 after buying an additional 9,866 shares in the last quarter. ORG Wealth Partners LLC acquired a new position in Avantor in the third quarter worth $139,000. Oliver Luxxe Assets LLC boosted its holdings in Avantor by 36.7% in the third quarter. Oliver Luxxe Assets LLC now owns 84,009 shares of the company’s stock worth $2,173,000 after purchasing an additional 22,534 shares during the period. Gateway Investment Advisers LLC boosted its holdings in Avantor by 189.7% in the third quarter. Gateway Investment Advisers LLC now owns 203,022 shares of the company’s stock worth $5,252,000 after purchasing an additional 132,953 shares during the period. Finally, Livforsakringsbolaget Skandia Omsesidigt boosted its holdings in Avantor by 278.0% in the third quarter. Livforsakringsbolaget Skandia Omsesidigt now owns 5,031 shares of the company’s stock worth $130,000 after purchasing an additional 3,700 shares during the period. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 95.08% of the company’s stock.

Avantor Price Performance

AVTR opened at $24.88 on Wednesday. The company’s 50 day simple moving average is $25.65 and its 200 day simple moving average is $24.34. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.89, a quick ratio of 1.05 and a current ratio of 1.59. Avantor has a 1 year low of $16.63 and a 1 year high of $28.00. The stock has a market capitalization of $16.90 billion, a PE ratio of 63.79, a P/E/G ratio of 2.93 and a beta of 1.33.

Avantor (NYSE:AVTR) last posted its quarterly earnings results on Friday, July 26th. The company reported $0.25 EPS for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $0.23 by $0.02. Avantor had a net margin of 5.28% and a return on equity of 12.40%. The firm had revenue of $1.70 billion for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $1.70 billion. As a group, sell-side analysts expect that Avantor will post 1.01 EPS for the current year.

About Avantor

Avantor, Inc engages in the provision of mission-critical products and services to customers in the biopharma, healthcare, education and government, advanced technologies, and applied materials industries in the Americas, Europe, Asia, the Middle East, and Africa. The company offers materials and consumables, such as purity chemicals and reagents, lab products and supplies, formulated silicone materials, customized excipients, customized single-use assemblies, process chromatography resins and columns, analytical sample prep kits, education and microbiology products, clinical trial kits, peristaltic pumps, and fluid handling tips.