Humana Target of Unusually High Options Trading (NYSE:HUM)

Humana Inc. (NYSE:HUM) saw unusually large options trading on Tuesday. Stock traders bought 9,903 call options on the stock. This represents an increase of 32% compared to the average volume of 7,492 call options.

Institutional Trading of Humana

Large investors have recently added to or reduced their stakes in the company. Dodge & Cox boosted its position in Humana by 106.7% in the fourth quarter. Dodge & Cox now owns 10,198,040 shares of the insurance provider’s stock valued at $2,587,345,000 after buying an additional 5,264,045 shares during the last quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. lifted its stake in Humana by 15.8% during the 4th quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 12,829,210 shares of the insurance provider’s stock valued at $3,254,899,000 after acquiring an additional 1,751,857 shares during the period. Norges Bank purchased a new stake in shares of Humana in the 4th quarter valued at $416,202,000. Pzena Investment Management LLC increased its stake in shares of Humana by 44.0% in the fourth quarter. Pzena Investment Management LLC now owns 3,609,382 shares of the insurance provider’s stock worth $915,736,000 after acquiring an additional 1,103,132 shares during the period. Finally, Boston Partners raised its holdings in shares of Humana by 435.8% during the fourth quarter. Boston Partners now owns 1,098,702 shares of the insurance provider’s stock worth $279,236,000 after purchasing an additional 893,637 shares during the last quarter. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 92.38% of the company’s stock.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

HUM has been the subject of several research reports. Piper Sandler upped their target price on Humana from $270.00 to $288.00 and gave the stock a “neutral” rating in a report on Wednesday, January 15th. JPMorgan Chase & Co. lowered their price objective on shares of Humana from $257.00 to $256.00 and set a “neutral” rating for the company in a research note on Tuesday, February 18th. Truist Financial raised their target price on shares of Humana from $260.00 to $290.00 and gave the company a “hold” rating in a research report on Monday, January 6th. Barclays upped their price target on shares of Humana from $255.00 to $270.00 and gave the stock an “equal weight” rating in a research report on Thursday, February 13th. Finally, StockNews.com upgraded shares of Humana from a “hold” rating to a “buy” rating in a research note on Monday. Seventeen analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and five have assigned a buy rating to the company’s stock. Based on data from MarketBeat, Humana has an average rating of “Hold” and an average price target of $280.17.

Humana Price Performance

Shares of HUM stock opened at $280.63 on Wednesday. Humana has a fifty-two week low of $213.31 and a fifty-two week high of $406.46. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.68, a quick ratio of 1.76 and a current ratio of 1.76. The firm has a market capitalization of $33.87 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 28.20, a PEG ratio of 2.05 and a beta of 0.62. The stock’s 50-day simple moving average is $266.00 and its 200-day simple moving average is $271.01.

Humana (NYSE:HUM) last released its earnings results on Tuesday, February 11th. The insurance provider reported ($2.16) earnings per share for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of ($2.26) by $0.10. Humana had a net margin of 1.02% and a return on equity of 11.70%. As a group, equities analysts forecast that Humana will post 16.47 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Humana Announces Dividend

The company also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Friday, April 25th. Investors of record on Friday, March 28th will be paid a $0.885 dividend. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Friday, March 28th. This represents a $3.54 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 1.26%. Humana’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is 35.58%.

About Humana

Humana Inc, together with its subsidiaries, provides medical and specialty insurance products in the United States. It operates through two segments, Insurance and CenterWell. The company offers medical and supplemental benefit plans to individuals. It has a contract with Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services to administer the Limited Income Newly Eligible Transition prescription drug plan program; and contracts with various states to provide Medicaid, dual eligible, and long-term support services benefits.