How to buy Maximus stock - 03 March
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How to buy Maximus stock

Own Maximus stock in just a few minutes.

Jing Jun Ma
Jing Jun Ma
Fact checked
Buy Maximus (MMS) Learn more

Maximus, Inc is a specialty business services business based in the US. Maximus shares (MMS) are listed on the NYSE and all prices are listed in US Dollars. Maximus employs 34,000 staff and has a trailing 12-month revenue of around USD$3.6 billion.

How to buy shares in Maximus

  1. Compare share trading platforms. If you're a beginner, look for a platform with low commissions, expert ratings and investment tools to track your portfolio. Narrow down top brands with our comparison table.
  2. 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.
  3. Search for Maximus. Find the stock by name or ticker symbol: MMS. Research its history to confirm it's a solid investment against your financial goals.
  4. Purchase now or later. Buy today with a market order or use a limit order to delay your purchase until Maximus reaches your desired price. To spread out your purchase, look into dollar-cost averaging, which smooths out buying at consistent intervals and amounts.
  5. Decide on how many to buy. 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 Maximus, depending on your broker.
  6. Check in on your investment. Congratulations, you own a part of Maximus. 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.

What's in this guide?

  1. MMS shares summary
  2. Compare share dealing platforms
  3. Is MMS stock a buy or sell?
  4. Stock performance over time
  5. Can I short MMS shares?
  6. Are MMS shares over-valued?
  7. Maximus's financials
  8. How volatile are MMS shares?
  9. Does Maximus pay a dividend?
  10. Have MMS shares ever split?
  11. Other common questions

Maximus share price

Use our graph to track the performance of MMS stocks over time.

Maximus shares at a glance

Information last updated 2021-03-03.
52-week rangeUSD$45.7237 - USD$84.73
50-day moving average USD$79.7974
200-day moving average USD$74.0243
Wall St. target priceUSD$88
PE ratio 23.7165
Dividend yield USD$1.12 (1.35%)
Earnings per share (TTM) USD$3.506

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Is it a good time to buy Maximus 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.

Technical Analysis of Maximus, Inc by TradingView

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.

Is Maximus under- or over-valued?

Valuing Maximus stock is incredibly difficult, and any metric has to be viewed as part of a bigger picture of Maximus's overall performance. However, analysts commonly use some key metrics to help gauge the value of a stock.

Maximus's P/E ratio

Maximus's current share price divided by its per-share earnings (EPS) over a 12-month period gives a "trailing price/earnings ratio" of roughly 24x. In other words, Maximus shares trade at around 24x recent earnings.

That's relatively low compared to, say, the trailing 12-month P/E ratio for the NASDAQ 100 at the end of 2019 (27.29). The low P/E ratio could mean that investors are pessimistic about the outlook for the shares or simply that they're under-valued.

Maximus's PEG ratio

Maximus's "price/earnings-to-growth ratio" can be calculated by dividing its P/E ratio by its growth – to give 2.0716. 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 Maximus's future profitability. By accounting for growth, it could also help you if you're comparing the share prices of multiple high-growth companies.

Maximus's EBITDA

Maximus's EBITDA (earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortisation) is USD$393.1 million.

The EBITDA is a measure of a Maximus's overall financial performance and is widely used to measure a its profitability.

Maximus financials

Revenue TTM USD$3.6 billion
Operating margin TTM 8.6%
Gross profit TTM USD$711 million
Return on assets TTM 9.51%
Return on equity TTM 16.93%
Profit margin 6.13%
Book value $21.127
Market capitalisation USD$5.1 billion

TTM: trailing 12 months

Shorting Maximus shares

There are currently 1.2 million Maximus shares held short by investors – that's known as Maximus's "short interest". This figure is 6.8% up from 1.2 million last month.

There are a few different ways that this level of interest in shorting Maximus shares can be evaluated.

Maximus's "short interest ratio" (SIR)

Maximus's "short interest ratio" (SIR) is the quantity of Maximus shares currently shorted divided by the average quantity of Maximus shares traded daily (recently around 361312.05882353). Maximus's SIR currently stands at 3.4. In other words for every 100,000 Maximus shares traded daily on the market, roughly 3400 shares are currently held short.

However Maximus's short interest can also be evaluated against the total number of Maximus shares, or, against the total number of tradable Maximus shares (the shares that aren't held by "insiders" or major long-term shareholders – also known as the "float"). In this case Maximus's short interest could be expressed as 0.02% of the outstanding shares (for every 100,000 Maximus shares in existence, roughly 20 shares are currently held short) or 0.0266% of the tradable shares (for every 100,000 tradable Maximus shares, roughly 27 shares are currently held short).

Such a low SIR usually points to an optimistic outlook for the share price, with fewer people currently willing to bet against Maximus.

Find out more about how you can short Maximus stock.

Maximus share dividends

32%

Dividend payout ratio: 31.82% of net profits

Recently Maximus has paid out, on average, around 31.82% of net profits as dividends. That has enabled analysts to estimate a "forward annual dividend yield" of 1.34% of the current stock value. This means that over a year, based on recent payouts (which are sadly no guarantee of future payouts), Maximus shareholders could enjoy a 1.34% return on their shares, in the form of dividend payments. In Maximus's case, that would currently equate to about $1.12 per share.

While Maximus's payout ratio might seem fairly standard, it's worth remembering that Maximus may be investing much of the rest of its net profits in future growth.

Maximus's most recent dividend payout was on 26 February 2021. The latest dividend was paid out to all shareholders who bought their shares by 11 February 2021 (the "ex-dividend date").

Have Maximus's shares ever split?

Maximus's shares were split on a 2:1 basis on 1 July 2013. 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 Maximus shares – just the quantity. However, indirectly, the new 50% lower share price could have impacted the market appetite for Maximus shares which in turn could have impacted Maximus's share price.

Maximus share price volatility

Over the last 12 months, Maximus's shares have ranged in value from as little as $45.7237 up to $84.73. A popular way to gauge a stock's volatility is its "beta".

MMS.US volatility(beta: 0.81)Avg. volatility(beta: 1.00)LowHigh

Beta is a measure of a share's volatility in relation to the market. The market (NYSE average) beta is 1, while Maximus's is 0.8111. This would suggest that Maximus's shares are less volatile than average (for this exchange).

Maximus overview

Maximus, Inc. provides business process services (BPS) to government health and human services programs worldwide. It operates through three segments: U.S. Services, U.S. Federal Services, and Outside the U.S. The U.S. Services segment offers various BPS solutions, such as program administration, appeals and assessments, and related consulting works for U.S. state and local government programs, including the Affordable Care Act, Medicaid, the Children's Health Insurance Program, Temporary Assistance to Needy Families, child support programs, Preadmission Screening and Resident Reviews, and Independent Developmental Disability assessments. This segment also provides program eligibility support and enrollment; centralized multilingual customer contact centers, multichannel, and digital self-service options for enrollment; application assistance and independent health plan choice counseling; beneficiary outreach, education, eligibility, enrollment, and redeterminations; person-centered independent disability, long-term sick, and other health assessments; and specialized consulting services. The U.S. Federal Services segment offers centralized citizen engagement centers and support services; document and record management; case management, citizen support, and consumer education; independent medical reviews and worker's compensation benefit appeals; Medicare and Medicaid appeals; and federal marketplace eligibility appeals. This segment also provides modernization of systems and information technology infrastructure; infrastructure operations and support services; software development, operations, and management services; and data analytics services. The Outside the U.S. segment offers BPS solutions for governments and commercial clients outside the United States, including health and disability assessments, program administration for employment services, and other job seeker-related services. The company was founded in 1975 and is headquartered in Reston, Virginia.

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