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Why You Should Retain IQVIA Holdings (IQV) Stock for Now

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IQVIA Holdings Inc.’s (IQV - Free Report) shares have gained 8.3% in the past month, outperforming the 3.8% rise of the Zacks S&P 500 composite.

IQV has an impressive Growth Score of B. This style score condenses all the essential metrics from the company’s financial statements to get a true sense of the quality and sustainability of its growth. It has a long-term (three to five years) expected EPS growth rate of 10.7%.

Factors That Bode Well

IQVIA’s enormous treasure trove of information is a distinguishing asset and also perhaps a big barrier to entry for competitors. It has a huge collection of healthcare information that encompasses more than one billion comprehensive, longitudinal, non-identified patient records across sales, prescription and promotional data, electronic medical records, medical claims, genomics, and social media.

The company’s burgeoning information set contains around 60 petabytes of proprietary data sourced from around 150,000 data suppliers and covers more than one million data feeds globally. It delivers information and insights on roughly 85% of the world’s pharmaceuticals. IQVIA’s unique ability to standardize, organize and integrate this information through applying sophisticated analytics and global technology infrastructure helps it to build a strong client base. In 2022, the company added 275 more customers to its tally.

IQVIA has a consistent record of share repurchases. In 2022, 2021 and 2020, the company repurchased shares worth $1.17 billion, $406 million and $447 million, respectively. Such moves not only instill investors’ confidence but also positively impact earnings per share.

Some Risks

IQVIA’s current ratio at the end of first-quarter 2023 was pegged at 0.8, lower than the current ratio of 0.93 reported at the end of the prior-year quarter. A decline in the current ratio is not desirable as it indicates that the company may have problems meeting its short-term obligations.

Zacks Rank and Stocks to Consider

IQV currently carries a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold).

Investors interested in the Zacks Business Services sector can consider the following better-ranked stocks.

Green Dot (GDOT - Free Report) : GDOT currently carries a Zacks Rank #2 (Buy) and has a VGM score of A. You can see the complete list of today’s Zacks #1 Rank (Strong Buy) stocks here.

The company has an impressive earning surprise history, beating the consensus mark in all the trailing four quarters. The company has an average surprise of 37.3%.

Maximus (MMS - Free Report) : MMS carries a Zacks Rank of 2 and has a VGM score of A.

The company has an impressive earning surprise history, beating the Zacks Consensus mark in three instances and missing once, the average surprise being 9.6%.


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