What Happened?
Shares of diagnostic company Exact Sciences Corporation (NASDAQ: EXAS) jumped 6.3% in the afternoon session after extending its positive momentum as RBC Capital Markets raised its price target on the company.
The investment bank increased its forecast for the stock's price to $50 from a previous target of $46, suggesting analysts see a higher potential value for the company's shares. However, it's important for investors to note that RBC maintained its "Sector Perform" rating on Exact Sciences. This rating indicates that the firm expects the stock to perform in line with the broader healthcare diagnostics sector, rather than significantly outperforming it. Adding to the broader market context, a recent industry report identified Exact Sciences as a key player in the growing U.S. prostate cancer biomarkers market.
Is now the time to buy Exact Sciences? Access our full analysis report here, it’s free.
What Is The Market Telling Us
Exact Sciences’s shares are quite volatile and have had 18 moves greater than 5% over the last year. In that context, today’s move indicates the market considers this news meaningful but not something that would fundamentally change its perception of the business.
The previous big move we wrote about was 1 day ago when the stock gained 1.5% on the news that RBC Capital Markets raised its price target on the company. The investment bank increased its forecast for the stock's price to $50 from a previous target of $46. This move suggests that the analyst sees a higher potential value for the company's shares. However, it is important for investors to note that RBC maintained its "Sector Perform" rating on Exact Sciences. This type of rating indicates that the firm expects the stock to perform in line with the broader healthcare diagnostics sector, rather than significantly outperforming it. The price target adjustment without a formal rating change often reflects updated financial modeling or a revised view on market conditions.
Exact Sciences is down 7.6% since the beginning of the year, and at $52.61 per share, it is trading 26.9% below its 52-week high of $71.93 from October 2024. Investors who bought $1,000 worth of Exact Sciences’s shares 5 years ago would now be looking at an investment worth $704.29.
Today’s young investors won’t have read the timeless lessons in Gorilla Game: Picking Winners In High Technology because it was written more than 20 years ago when Microsoft and Apple were first establishing their supremacy. But if we apply the same principles, then enterprise software stocks leveraging their own generative AI capabilities may well be the Gorillas of the future. So, in that spirit, we are excited to present our Special Free Report on a profitable, fast-growing enterprise software stock that is already riding the automation wave and looking to catch the generative AI next.
