How to buy Novartis stock | 84.41

Novartis AG is a drug manufacturers—general business based in the US. Novartis shares (NVS) are listed on the NYSE and all prices are listed in US Dollars. Novartis employs 110,000 staff and has a trailing 12-month revenue of around USD$49.6 billion.

How to buy shares in Novartis

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 Novartis. Find the stock by name or ticker symbol: NVS. 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 Novartis 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. At last close price of USD$84.41, 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 Novartis, depending on your broker.
6. Check in on your investment. Congratulations, you own a part of Novartis. 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.

How has coronavirus impacted Novartis's share price?

Since the stock market crash in March caused by coronavirus, Novartis's share price has had significant negative movement.

Its last market close was USD$84.41, which is 12.76% down on its pre-crash value of USD$96.76 and 22.01% up on the lowest point reached during the March crash when the shares fell as low as USD$69.1801.

If you had bought USD$1,000 worth of Novartis shares at the start of February 2020, those shares would have been worth USD$749.81 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$895.59.

Novartis share price

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

Novartis shares at a glance

• Key figures

Information last updated 2020-11-25.

Latest market close	USD$84.41
52-week range	USD$69.1801 - USD$96.2945
50-day moving average	USD$84.875
200-day moving average	USD$86.196
Wall St. target price	USD$104.5
PE ratio	28.3236
Dividend yield	USD$3.09 (3.5%)
Earnings per share (TTM)	USD$3.087

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Is it a good time to buy Novartis 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 Novartis AG 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.

Novartis price performance over time

Historical closes compared with the close of $84.41 from 2020-10-22

1 week (2020-11-23)	-3.32%
1 month (2020-10-30)	8.11%
3 months (2020-08-28)	-2.53%
6 months (2020-05-29)	-3.45%

1 year (2019-11-29)	-8.55%
2 years (2018-11-30)	-7.78%
3 years (2017-11-30)	-1.62%
5 years (2015-11-30)	-0.97%

Is Novartis under- or over-valued?

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

Novartis's P/E ratio

Novartis's current share price divided by its per-share earnings (EPS) over a 12-month period gives a "trailing price/earnings ratio" of roughly 28x. In other words, Novartis shares trade at around 28x recent earnings.

That's comparable to, say, the trailing 12-month P/E ratio for the NASDAQ 100 at the end of 2019 (27.29).

Novartis's PEG ratio

Novartis's "price/earnings-to-growth ratio" can be calculated by dividing its P/E ratio by its growth – to give 2.7242. 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 Novartis's future profitability. By accounting for growth, it could also help you if you're comparing the share prices of multiple high-growth companies.

Novartis's EBITDA

Novartis's EBITDA (earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortisation) is USD$18 billion.

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

Novartis financials

Revenue TTM	USD$49.6 billion
Operating margin TTM	26.75%
Gross profit TTM	USD$34.7 billion
Return on assets TTM	6.75%
Return on equity TTM	13.25%
Profit margin	14.33%
Book value	$23.954
Market capitalisation	USD$201.8 billion

TTM: trailing 12 months

Shorting Novartis shares

There are currently 3.2 million Novartis shares held short by investors – that's known as Novartis's "short interest". This figure is 0.2% up from 3.2 million last month.

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

Novartis's "short interest ratio" (SIR)

Novartis's "short interest ratio" (SIR) is the quantity of Novartis shares currently shorted divided by the average quantity of Novartis shares traded daily (recently around 1.8 million). Novartis's SIR currently stands at 1.83. In other words for every 100,000 Novartis shares traded daily on the market, roughly 1830 shares are currently held short.

However Novartis's short interest can also be evaluated against the total number of Novartis shares, or, against the total number of tradable Novartis shares (the shares that aren't held by "insiders" or major long-term shareholders – also known as the "float"). In this case Novartis's short interest could be expressed as 0% of the outstanding shares (for every 100,000 Novartis shares in existence, roughly 0 shares are currently held short) or 0% of the tradable shares (for every 100,000 tradable Novartis shares, roughly 0 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 Novartis.

Find out more about how you can short Novartis stock.

Novartis share dividends

Dividend payout ratio: 52.81% of net profits

Recently Novartis has paid out, on average, around 52.81% of net profits as dividends. That has enabled analysts to estimate a "forward annual dividend yield" of 3.5% of the current stock value. This means that over a year, based on recent payouts (which are sadly no guarantee of future payouts), Novartis shareholders could enjoy a 3.5% return on their shares, in the form of dividend payments. In Novartis's case, that would currently equate to about $3.09 per share.

Novartis'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.

Novartis's most recent dividend payout was on 12 March 2020. The latest dividend was paid out to all shareholders who bought their shares by 3 March 2020 (the "ex-dividend date").

Have Novartis's shares ever split?

Novartis's shares were split on a 1116:1000 basis on 9 April 2019. So if you had owned 1000 shares the day before before the split, the next day you'd have owned 1116 shares. This wouldn't directly have changed the overall worth of your Novartis shares – just the quantity. However, indirectly, the new 10.4% lower share price could have impacted the market appetite for Novartis shares which in turn could have impacted Novartis's share price.

Novartis share price volatility

Over the last 12 months, Novartis's shares have ranged in value from as little as $69.1801 up to $96.2945. 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 (NYSE average) beta is 1, while Novartis's is 0.4291. This would suggest that Novartis's shares are less volatile than average (for this exchange).

Novartis overview

Novartis AG researches, develops, manufactures, and markets healthcare products worldwide. Its Innovative Medicines segment offers prescription medicines for patients and healthcare providers. It also provides ophthalmology, neuroscience, immunology, hepatology and dermatology, respiratory, cardio-metabolic, established, and cardiovascular, renal and metabolism medicine products. The company's Sandoz segment provides active ingredients and finished dosage forms of small molecule pharmaceuticals to third parties across a range of therapeutic areas, as well as finished dosage form anti-infectives. It also provides active pharmaceutical ingredients and intermediates primarily antibiotics; protein- or other biotechnology-based products, including biosimilars; and biotechnology manufacturing services. Novartis AG has collaboration agreements with Pear Therapeutics; Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering at Harvard University and the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute; Science 37; Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation; Amgen; University of California, Berkeley; Bristol-Myers Squibb; Drugs for Neglected Diseases initiative (DNDi); TScan Therapeutics; Dyno Therapeutics Inc.; and Olema Oncology. The company was founded in 1895 and is headquartered in Basel, Switzerland.

Frequently asked questions

• What percentage of Novartis is owned by insiders or institutions?

  Currently 0.003% of Novartis shares are held by insiders and 10.079% by institutions.

• How many people work for Novartis?

  Latest data suggests 110,000 work at Novartis.

• When does the fiscal year end for Novartis?

  Novartis's fiscal year ends in December.

• Where is Novartis based?

  Novartis's address is: Lichtstrasse 35, Basel, Switzerland, 4056

• What is Novartis's ISIN number?

  Novartis's international securities identification number is: US66987V1098

• What is Novartis's CUSIP number?

  Novartis's Committee on Uniform Securities Identification Procedures number is: 66987V109