Envista (NVST) Sees 3.1% Price Movement on Lower Than Average Volume

By Scott Lee • Thursday, July 13 15:08 • Permanent Link

One of the standouts of today's afternoon trading session was Envista, which logged a 3.1% performance and outperformed the S&P 500 by 2.0%. The Medical Instruments & Supplies stock is now trading at $35.3 per share and may still have upside potential because it is still -18.38% under its average target price of $43.25. Analysts have set target prices ranging from $38.0 to $46.0 dollars per share, and have given the stock an average rating of buy.

We can use Envista's short interest as a proxy for determining general market sentiment regarding the stock. The short interest is the percentage of the share float that represents short positions, meaning that the investor believes the stock will decline in the future. Since NVST's short interest is 6.7%, the market sentiment is mixed on this stock.

Short selling involves borrowing shares and then selling them at current market prices. In the successful version of the strategy, the shares are purchased at a lower price at some time in the future. The investor then returns the shares to the lender, and keeps the profit made on the sell/buy transaction.

Another way to gauge the sentiment on Envista is to look at the percentage of institutions that are invested in the stock. In this case, 115.6% of the shares are held by pension, mutual, and hedge funds, which shows that these institutions probably have strong confidence in the stock.

If institutions are invested in a particular stock, it shows in most cases that they have performed quality research and concluded that it is a good investment. In some cases, however, increases in institutional ownership could be a sign of a takeover attempt or proxy fight, which can actually injure share prices. Also, institutions are not infallible, and can certainly make miscalculations -- often with spectacular results.

In conclusion, we see mixed market sentiment regarding Envista because of an analyst consensus of some upside potential, a buy rating, an average amount of shares sold short, and a significant number of institutional investors. At Market Inference, we believe that any investment decision should be preceded by an in-depth analysis of the company's fundamental values and a comparison with similar stocks.

Here's a snapshot of some important facts to keep in mind about NVST:

The stock has trailing 12 month earnings per share (EPS) of $1.22
Envista has a trailing 12 month Price to Earnings (P/E) ratio of 28.9 compared to the S&P 500 average of 15.97
The company has a Price to Book (P/B) ratio of 1.35 in contrast to the S&P 500's average ratio of 2.95
Envista is a Health Care company, and the sector average P/E and P/B ratios are 24.45 and 4.16 respectively

The above analysis is intended for educational purposes only and was performed on the basis of publicly available data. It is not to be construed as a recommendation to buy or sell any security. Any buy, sell, or other recommendations mentioned in the article are direct quotations of consensus recommendations from the analysts covering the stock, and do not represent the opinions of Market Inference or its writers. Past performance, accounting data, and inferences about market position and corporate valuation are not reliable indicators of future price movements. Market Inference does not provide financial advice. Investors should conduct their own review and analysis of any company of interest before making an investment decision.