What Happened?
Shares of insurance and retirement company Lincoln National (NYSE: LNC) jumped 3% in the afternoon session after Morgan Stanley upgraded the stock to Overweight from Equalweight and boosted its price target.
The investment bank hiked its price target on the shares to $58 from $41, pointing to the company's underappreciated Group Protection segment as a key driver for future earnings. Morgan Stanley's analysts noted that this unit was a major reason for earnings outperformance in the previous four quarters. They projected that the Group Protection business would grow at a compound annual rate of 26% between 2023 and 2026. This forecast stood well above Lincoln's own target range of 13-16%, suggesting the segment will play a much larger and higher-quality role in the company's overall profits.
The shares closed the day at $41.25, up 3.6% from previous close.
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What Is The Market Telling Us
Lincoln Financial Group’s shares are not very volatile and have only had 9 moves greater than 5% over the last year. In that context, today’s move indicates the market considers this news meaningful, although it might not be something that would fundamentally change its perception of the business.
The previous big move we wrote about was 3 days ago when the stock dropped 3.2% on the news that Wolfe Research initiated coverage on the stock with an "Underperform" rating. The research firm, led by analyst Tracy Benguigui, set a price target of $37.00 for the financial services company.
An "Underperform" rating suggests that the analyst expects the stock to perform worse than the broader market or its industry peers in the near future. This new bearish outlook from a notable research firm likely prompted investors to sell their shares, putting downward pressure on the stock price.
Lincoln Financial Group is up 29.6% since the beginning of the year, and at $41.26 per share, it is trading close to its 52-week high of $43.29 from September 2025. Investors who bought $1,000 worth of Lincoln Financial Group’s shares 5 years ago would now be looking at an investment worth $1,308.
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