Icon (NASDAQ:ICLR) Rating Lowered to “Hold” at Jefferies Financial Group

Jefferies Financial Group downgraded shares of Icon (NASDAQ:ICLR) from a buy rating to a hold rating in a research note issued to investors on Tuesday morning, MarketBeat.com reports. Jefferies Financial Group currently has $175.00 target price on the medical research company’s stock, down from their previous target price of $220.00.

A number of other analysts have also recently issued reports on ICLR. Barclays increased their price objective on Icon from $155.00 to $180.00 and gave the stock an “equal weight” rating in a report on Friday, July 25th. Baird R W raised shares of Icon from a “hold” rating to a “strong-buy” rating in a report on Thursday, July 24th. Truist Financial boosted their price objective on shares of Icon from $187.00 to $234.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a research note on Friday, July 25th. Robert W. Baird increased their target price on shares of Icon from $222.00 to $224.00 and gave the stock an “outperform” rating in a research note on Tuesday, September 2nd. Finally, Evercore ISI raised their price target on shares of Icon from $170.00 to $240.00 and gave the company an “outperform” rating in a report on Friday, July 25th. Three research analysts have rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, nine have issued a Buy rating and seven have given a Hold rating to the company’s stock. Based on data from MarketBeat, the company has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus price target of $216.67.

Icon Stock Up 5.8%

ICLR opened at $175.11 on Tuesday. The company has a 50 day moving average of $167.37 and a 200 day moving average of $158.12. The company has a market cap of $14.14 billion, a PE ratio of 18.02, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 2.45 and a beta of 1.20. Icon has a 12 month low of $125.10 and a 12 month high of $310.54. The company has a current ratio of 1.29, a quick ratio of 1.29 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.35.

Icon (NASDAQ:ICLR) last issued its earnings results on Wednesday, July 23rd. The medical research company reported $3.26 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $3.18 by $0.08. The business had revenue of $2.02 billion for the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $1.98 billion. Icon had a net margin of 9.82% and a return on equity of 10.95%. The business’s revenue for the quarter was down 4.8% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same quarter in the previous year, the firm posted $3.75 EPS. Icon has set its FY 2025 guidance at 13.000-14.000 EPS. On average, sell-side analysts expect that Icon will post 13.38 EPS for the current year.

Institutional Trading of Icon

A number of hedge funds have recently made changes to their positions in the stock. Farther Finance Advisors LLC lifted its holdings in shares of Icon by 22.8% in the 1st quarter. Farther Finance Advisors LLC now owns 593 shares of the medical research company’s stock worth $99,000 after acquiring an additional 110 shares during the last quarter. NBC Securities Inc. purchased a new position in Icon in the 1st quarter worth $59,000. Wealthquest Corp bought a new stake in Icon in the first quarter worth $862,000. Arkadios Wealth Advisors boosted its position in Icon by 573.7% during the first quarter. Arkadios Wealth Advisors now owns 7,828 shares of the medical research company’s stock valued at $1,370,000 after buying an additional 6,666 shares during the period. Finally, GAMMA Investing LLC boosted its position in Icon by 15,701.6% during the first quarter. GAMMA Investing LLC now owns 68,421 shares of the medical research company’s stock valued at $119,730,000 after buying an additional 67,988 shares during the period. 95.61% of the stock is owned by institutional investors.

About Icon

ICON Public Limited Company, a clinical research organization, provides outsourced development and commercialization services in Ireland, rest of Europe, the United States, and internationally. The company specializes in the strategic development, management, and analysis of programs that support various stages of the clinical development process from compound selection to Phase I-IV clinical studies.