St. Jude Medical, Inc. (NYSE:STJ)‘s stock had its “hold” rating reaffirmed by equities researchers at Jefferies Group in a report released on Thursday, Analyst Ratings Network.com reports.

Several other research firms also recently commented on STJ. Sterne Agee CRT dropped their price objective on St. Jude Medical from $85.00 to $81.00 and set a “buy” rating on the stock in a research note on Friday, November 13th. BTIG Research reiterated a “buy” rating and issued a $69.00 price objective on shares of St. Jude Medical in a research note on Thursday, November 12th. Canaccord Genuity reiterated a “sell” rating and issued a $64.00 price objective on shares of St. Jude Medical in a research note on Monday, October 5th. Oppenheimer dropped their price objective on St. Jude Medical from $72.00 to $64.00 and set a “market perform” rating on the stock in a research note on Thursday. Finally, Zacks Investment Research downgraded St. Jude Medical from a “buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a research note on Friday, October 23rd. One equities research analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, nine have assigned a hold rating and thirteen have issued a buy rating to the company. The stock currently has an average rating of “Buy” and an average price target of $73.77.

A number of hedge funds recently modified their holdings of the company. Nordea Investment Management AB raised its stake in shares of St. Jude Medical by 16.4% in the fourth quarter. Nordea Investment Management AB now owns 3,235,214 shares of the medical technology company’s stock valued at $199,839,000 after buying an additional 455,553 shares during the period. Sanders Capital LLC increased its position in shares of St. Jude Medical by 3.7% in the fourth quarter. Sanders Capital LLC now owns 5,060,115 shares of the medical technology company’s stock worth $323,592,000 after buying an additional 180,900 shares in the last quarter. Capital Fund Management S.A. acquired a new position in shares of St. Jude Medical during the fourth quarter worth $7,304,000. Candriam Luxembourg S.C.A. increased its position in shares of St. Jude Medical by 49.0% in the fourth quarter. Candriam Luxembourg S.C.A. now owns 301,391 shares of the medical technology company’s stock worth $18,617,000 after buying an additional 99,154 shares in the last quarter. Finally, DNB Asset Management increased its position in shares of St. Jude Medical by 584.9% in the fourth quarter. DNB Asset Management now owns 96,956 shares of the medical technology company’s stock worth $5,988,972 after buying an additional 82,800 shares in the last quarter.

St. Jude Medical (NYSE:STJ) traded up 0.21% during midday trading on Thursday, reaching $52.86. The company had a trading volume of 4,148,135 shares. The company has a market capitalization of $14.94 billion and a PE ratio of 15.02. St. Jude Medical has a one year low of $52.17 and a one year high of $80.84. The stock’s 50 day moving average is $58.58 and its 200 day moving average is $65.46.

St. Jude Medical (NYSE:STJ) last posted its quarterly earnings data on Wednesday, January 27th. The medical technology company reported $1.02 EPS for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $1.01 by $0.01. The firm earned $1.45 billion during the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $1.48 billion. St. Jude Medical’s revenue for the quarter was up .6% on a year-over-year basis. During the same quarter in the previous year, the company posted $1.03 EPS. Equities research analysts forecast that St. Jude Medical will post $4.07 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

The company also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Friday, January 29th. Stockholders of record on Thursday, December 31st will be issued a dividend of $0.29 per share. This is a positive change from St. Jude Medical’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.23. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Tuesday, December 29th. This represents a $1.16 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 2.19%.

In other news, EVP John C. Heinmiller sold 8,009 shares of the stock in a transaction dated Friday, December 18th. The shares were sold at an average price of $61.16, for a total transaction of $489,830.44. Following the completion of the sale, the executive vice president now directly owns 237,211 shares in the company, valued at $14,507,824.76. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which is accessible through the SEC website. Also, CFO Donald Zurbay sold 3,106 shares of the stock in a transaction dated Monday, December 21st. The stock was sold at an average price of $60.96, for a total transaction of $189,341.76. Following the sale, the chief financial officer now owns 19,284 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $1,175,552.64. The disclosure for this sale can be found here.

St. Jude Medical, Inc. develops, manufactures and distributes cardiovascular medical devices for the global cardiac rhythm management, cardiovascular and atrial fibrillation therapy areas, and interventional pain therapy and neurostimulation devices for the management of chronic pain and movement disorders. Its six principal product categories include tachycardia implantable cardioverter defibrillator (NYSE:STJ) systems, bradycardia pacemaker systems, atrial fibrillation (AF) products (electrophysiology introducers and catheters, advanced cardiac mapping, navigation and recording systems and ablation systems), vascular products (vascular closure products, pressure measurement guidewires, optical coherence tomography (OCT) imaging products, heart failure monitoring device and other vascular accessories), structural heart products and neuromodulation products (spinal cord stimulation and radiofrequency ablation to treat chronic pain and deep brain stimulation to treat movement disorders).

12 Month Chart for NYSE:STJ

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