Stock Update: Abbott Laboratories (NYSE:ABT) – Abbott Introduces New Services and Tools to Help Labs Deliver Greater Operational Productivity

[PR Newswire] – ABBOTT PARK, Ill., April 21, 2016 /PRNewswire/ — Abbott (ABT) today announced the global launch of AlinIQ, the first in a series of new innovations that Abbott will be bringing to diagnostics customers around the world over the next few years. AlinIQ is a first-of-its-kind professional services and informatics solution that will enable labs to deliver greater overall productivity with their existing resources. In addition to AlinIQ, Abbott is preparing to launch next-generation systems in point of care testing, immunoassay, clinical chemistry, hematology, blood screening and molecular diagnostics. Read more on this. Abbott Laboratories (ABT) , valued at $64.43B, opened at $43.78. Looking at the stock, its one day range is $43.73 to $44.32 with its 52-week range being $36.00 to $51.74. Priced at 20.26x this year’s forecasted earnings, ABT shares are relatively expensive compared to the industry’s -5.18x forward p/e ratio. The company pays shareholders $1.04 per share annually in dividends, yielding 2.37%. Consensus earnings for the current quarter by the 19 sell-side analysts covering the stock is an estimate of $0.53 per share, which would be $0.01 better than the year-ago quarter and a $0.03 sequential decrease. Furthermore, our analysis shows the full-year EPS estimate to be $2.17, which would be a $0.02 better when compared to the last year’s annual results. The quarterly earnings estimate is based on a consensus revenue forecast of the current quarter of $5.15 Billion. If realized, that would be a 0.39% decrease over the year-ago quarter. Recently, Morgan Stanley downgraded ABT from Overweight to Equal-Weight (Jan 4, 2016). Previously, Goldman downgraded ABT from Buy to Neutral. With the above information in mind, readers should note that the average price target is $45.93, which is 4.91% above where the stock opened this morning. See more in (NYSE:ABT) Similar Articles: Stock Update: Abbott Laboratories (NYSE:ABT) – FDA advisers to weigh risks of Abbott’s dissolving stent Company Update: Abbott Laboratories (NYSE:ABT) – Abbott Declares 369th Consecutive Quarterly Dividend Market Update: Abbott Laboratories (NYSE:ABT) – Abbott Labs to buy diagnostics company Alere for $5.8 bln