12:00 PM EDT, 04/18/2024 (MT Newswires) -- CFRA, an independent research provider, has provided MT Newswires with the following research alert. Analysts at CFRA have summarized their opinion as follows:

We raise our 12-month target price $33 to $558, 15x our 2024 EPS forecast (up $0.10 to $37.20 on higher guidance), near ELV's recent historical average. We raise our 2025 estimate $0.54 to $41.58. Q1 EPS of $10.64 vs. $9.46 beat consensus by $0.11. Carelon revenue rose 5.2% Y/Y, supported by higher Rx volumes, while Health Benefits revenues were flat Y/Y, given membership losses from Medicaid redetermination and a 0.5% decline in premium revenue. The Health Benefits expense ratio of 85.6% improved from 85.8% in the prior-year quarter and 89.2% in Q4 2023. Importantly, ELV feels that medical utilization during the quarter was in line with expectations, which follows similar commentary in recent days from peer UnitedHealth Group (UNH 494 ***). Along with concurrent price increases across managed health care and declines across hospital stocks, we think the market may be signaling that growth in medical utilization is close to a near-term peak, which would remove a recent overhang on the sub-industry.