AstraZeneca PLC (AZN) is a leading drug manufacturers-general business based in the US. It opened the day at USD$47.62 after a previous close of USD$47.73. During the day the price has varied from a low of USD$46.845 to a high of USD$47.64. The latest price was USD$47.16 (25 minute delay). AstraZeneca is listed on the NASDAQ and employs 76,100 staff. All prices are listed in US Dollars.
Latest updates
Monday, December 21: Developers of Russian vaccine Sputnik V sign an agreement to trial a Sputnik V AstraZeneca combination vaccine. Monday, November 23: AstraZeneca announces its vaccine has an average efficacy of 70%. In some clinical tests, the vaccine was 90% effective.
How to buy shares in AstraZeneca
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Open and fund your brokerage account. Complete an application with your personal and financial details, like your ID and bank information. Fund your account with a bank transfer, credit card or debit card.
Search for AstraZeneca. Find the stock by name or ticker symbol: AZN. Research its history to confirm it's a solid investment against your financial goals.
Purchase now or later. Buy today with a market order or use a limit order to delay your purchase until AstraZeneca reaches your desired price. To spread out your purchase, look into dollar-cost averaging, which smooths out buying at consistent intervals and amounts.
Decide on how many to buy. At last close price of USD$47.16, weigh your budget against a diversified portfolio that can minimize risk through the market's ups and downs. You may be able to buy a fractional share of AstraZeneca, depending on your broker.
Check in on your investment. Congratulations, you own a part of AstraZeneca. Optimize your portfolio by tracking how your stock — and even the business — performs with an eye on the long term. You may be eligible for dividends and shareholder voting rights on directors and management that can affect your stock.
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How has coronavirus impacted AstraZeneca's share price?
Since the stock market crash in March caused by coronavirus, AstraZeneca's share price has had significant negative movement.
Its last close price was USD$47.16, which is 6.00% down on its pre-crash value of USD$50.17 and 30.46% up on the lowest point reached during the March crash when the shares fell as low as USD$36.15.
If you had bought USD$1,000 worth of AstraZeneca shares at the start of February 2020, those shares would have been worth USD$799.26 at the bottom of the March crash, and if you held on to them, then as of the last market close they'd be worth USD$971.97.
In mid-November, AstraZeneca announced that its COVID-19 vaccine, which was developed in partnership with the University of Oxford, has an average efficacy of 70%. In some clinical tests, the vaccine was 90% effective. The company says it will have 3 billion doses of the vaccine available in 2021.
The company’s vaccine follows news that Moderna and Pfizer have each developed vaccines. Shares of AstraZeneca (AZN) were down following the news.
AstraZeneca share price
Use our graph to track the performance of AZN stocks over time.
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Is it a good time to buy AstraZeneca stock?
The technical analysis gauge below displays real-time ratings for the timeframes you select. This is not a recommendation, however. It represents a technical analysis based on the most popular technical indicators: Moving Averages, Oscillators and Pivots. Finder might not concur and takes no responsibility.
This chart is not advice or a guarantee of success. Rather, it gauges the real-time recommendations of three popular technical indicators: moving averages, oscillators and pivots. Finder is not responsible for how your stock performs.
AstraZeneca price performance over time
Historical closes compared with the close of $47.16 from 2021-02-25
1 week (2021-02-24)
-5.87%
1 month (2021-02-04)
-6.35%
3 months (2020-12-03)
-10.65%
6 months (2020-09-03)
-12.92%
1 year (2020-03-03)
3.60%
2 years (2019-03-01)
12.93%
3 years (2018-03-02)
42.22%
5 years (2016-03-03)
64.09%
Is AstraZeneca under- or over-valued?
Valuing AstraZeneca stock is incredibly difficult, and any metric has to be viewed as part of a bigger picture of AstraZeneca's overall performance. However, analysts commonly use some key metrics to help gauge the value of a stock.
AstraZeneca's P/E ratio
AstraZeneca's current share price divided by its per-share earnings (EPS) over a 12-month period gives a "trailing price/earnings ratio" of roughly 39x. In other words, AstraZeneca shares trade at around 39x recent earnings.
That's relatively high compared to, say, the trailing 12-month P/E ratio for the NASDAQ 100 at the end of 2019 (27.29). The high P/E ratio could mean that investors are optimistic about the outlook for the shares or simply that they're over-valued.
AstraZeneca's PEG ratio
AstraZeneca's "price/earnings-to-growth ratio" can be calculated by dividing its P/E ratio by its growth – to give 1.039. A low ratio can be interpreted as meaning the shares offer better value, while a higher ratio can be interpreted as meaning the shares offer worse value.
The PEG ratio provides a broader view than just the P/E ratio, as it gives more insight into AstraZeneca's future profitability. By accounting for growth, it could also help you if you're comparing the share prices of multiple high-growth companies.
AstraZeneca's EBITDA
AstraZeneca's EBITDA (earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortisation) is USD$6.8 billion.
The EBITDA is a measure of a AstraZeneca's overall financial performance and is widely used to measure a its profitability.
AstraZeneca financials
Revenue TTM
USD$26.6 billion
Operating margin TTM
15.58%
Gross profit TTM
USD$21.4 billion
Return on assets TTM
4.05%
Return on equity TTM
20.8%
Profit margin
12.01%
Book value
$5.9505
Market capitalisation
USD$123.8 billion
TTM: trailing 12 months
Shorting AstraZeneca shares
There are currently 77.9 million AstraZeneca shares held short by investors – that's known as AstraZeneca's "short interest". This figure is 18.2% up from 65.9 million last month.
There are a few different ways that this level of interest in shorting AstraZeneca shares can be evaluated.
AstraZeneca's "short interest ratio" (SIR)
AstraZeneca's "short interest ratio" (SIR) is the quantity of AstraZeneca shares currently shorted divided by the average quantity of AstraZeneca shares traded daily (recently around 11.4 million). AstraZeneca's SIR currently stands at 6.81. In other words for every 100,000 AstraZeneca shares traded daily on the market, roughly 6810 shares are currently held short.
However AstraZeneca's short interest can also be evaluated against the total number of AstraZeneca shares, or, against the total number of tradable AstraZeneca shares (the shares that aren't held by "insiders" or major long-term shareholders – also known as the "float"). In this case AstraZeneca's short interest could be expressed as 0.03% of the outstanding shares (for every 100,000 AstraZeneca shares in existence, roughly 30 shares are currently held short) or 0% of the tradable shares (for every 100,000 tradable AstraZeneca shares, roughly 0 shares are currently held short).
A SIR below 10% would generally be considered to indicate a fairly optimistic outlook for the share price, with fewer people currently willing to bet against AstraZeneca.
Recently AstraZeneca has paid out, on average, around 69.83% of net profits as dividends. That has enabled analysts to estimate a "forward annual dividend yield" of 2.93% of the current stock value. This means that over a year, based on recent payouts (which are sadly no guarantee of future payouts), AstraZeneca shareholders could enjoy a 2.93% return on their shares, in the form of dividend payments. In AstraZeneca's case, that would currently equate to about $2.8 per share.
AstraZeneca's payout ratio would broadly be considered high, and as such this stock could appeal to those looking to generate an income. Bear in mind however that companies should normally also look to re-invest a decent amount of net profits to ensure future growth.
AstraZeneca's most recent dividend payout was on 29 March 2021. The latest dividend was paid out to all shareholders who bought their shares by 25 February 2021 (the "ex-dividend date").
Have AstraZeneca's shares ever split?
AstraZeneca's shares were split on a 2:1 basis on 27 July 2015. So if you had owned 1 share the day before before the split, the next day you'd have owned 2 shares. This wouldn't directly have changed the overall worth of your AstraZeneca shares – just the quantity. However, indirectly, the new 50% lower share price could have impacted the market appetite for AstraZeneca shares which in turn could have impacted AstraZeneca's share price.
AstraZeneca share price volatility
Over the last 12 months, AstraZeneca's shares have ranged in value from as little as $35.1833 up to $63.2033. A popular way to gauge a stock's volatility is its "beta".
Beta is a measure of a share's volatility in relation to the market. The market (NASDAQ average) beta is 1, while AstraZeneca's is 0.1665. This would suggest that AstraZeneca's shares are less volatile than average (for this exchange).
AstraZeneca overview
AstraZeneca PLC discovers, develops, manufactures, and commercializes prescription medicines in the areas of oncology, cardiovascular, renal and metabolism, respiratory, infection, neuroscience, and gastroenterology worldwide. The company's marketed products include Tagrisso, Lynparza, Imfinzi, Enhertu, Koselugo, Lumoxiti, Equidacent, Zoladex, Faslodex, Iressa, Arimidex, Casodex/Cosudex, and others for oncology diseases; Onglyza, Bydureon, Lokelma, Byetta, Qtern, Symlin, and others for cardiovascular, renal, and metabolism diseases; and Symbicort, Pulmicort, Fasenra, Daliresp/Daxas, Duaklir, Tudorza/Eklira, Bevespi, Breztri, Anifrolumab, and others for respiratory and immunology diseases. It also offers other medicines and COVID-19 products, including Synagis, Fluenz Tetra/FluMist Quadrivalent, Seroquel IR/Seroquel XR, Vimovo, Movantik/Moventig, Nexium, Losec/Prilosec, and COVID-19 Vaccine AstraZeneca. The company serves primary care and specialty care physicians through distributors and local representative offices. It has a collaboration agreement with Daiichi Sankyo to develop and commercialize DS-1062 for the treatment of trophoblast cell-surface antigen 2 (TROP2) tumor; and AliveCor, Inc. to develop non-invasive potassium monitoring solutions. The company was formerly known as Zeneca Group PLC and changed its name to AstraZeneca PLC in April 1999. AstraZeneca PLC was incorporated in 1992 and is headquartered in Cambridge, the United Kingdom.
Frequently asked questions
Currently 0.001% of AstraZeneca shares are held by insiders and 16.816% by institutions.
Latest data suggests 76,100 work at AstraZeneca.
AstraZeneca's fiscal year ends in December.
AstraZeneca's address is: 1 Francis Crick Avenue, Cambridge, United Kingdom, CB2 0AA
AstraZeneca's international securities identification number is: US0463531089
AstraZeneca's Committee on Uniform Securities Identification Procedures number is: 046353108
Jing Jun Ma is an innovations expert at Finder. With a decade of experience in digital marketing and programming, Jing is a tech and data guy. He wrangles data to make it useful for consumers facing a decision.
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