NEW YORK, December 30, 2025, 19:51 ET — After-hours
- Abbott shares closed up about 1% at $125.78 and were flat in after-hours trading.
- A new SEC filing from acquisition target Exact Sciences detailed accelerated bonus and equity payouts tied to “golden parachute” tax rules.
- Investors are watching Volt’s U.S. rollout and the next earnings date window as year-end positioning wraps up.
Abbott Laboratories (ABT.N) shares rose 0.97% to $125.78 in Tuesday’s regular session and held steady in after-hours trading.
The move lands as investors reprice 2026 catalysts for large-cap healthcare, where product cycles and deal timelines can matter more than day-to-day macro noise.
Abbott has two big threads in play: a planned push deeper into cancer screening through a major acquisition and a newly cleared heart-rhythm device in a fast-developing market. Both can influence revenue mix and margins, which feed directly into valuation.
In the broader tape, U.S. stocks ended slightly lower in choppy, holiday-thin trade, leaving single-stock headlines to carry more weight than usual.
Abbott traded between $124.35 and $126.28 on Tuesday, with about 5.3 million shares changing hands, according to market data.
One fresh catalyst came from outside Abbott. A filing from Exact Sciences said its board committee approved accelerated payouts for named executives to reduce exposure to U.S. “golden parachute” tax rules — Sections 280G and 4999 — in connection with the proposed deal, including deeming the 2025 annual bonus at 115% of target. SEC filing
Abbott announced in November that it would buy Exact Sciences in a deal valued at up to $23 billion including debt, part of a strategy to broaden its diagnostics portfolio beyond COVID-era testing demand.
On the product side, investors have been revisiting Abbott’s U.S. FDA approval for its Volt pulsed field ablation system to treat atrial fibrillation. Pulsed field ablation (PFA) is a minimally invasive procedure that uses electrical pulses to treat irregular heart rhythms, a newer approach designed to limit collateral damage compared with heat- or cold-based ablation.
“We remain bullish on PFA and believe the U.S. approval of Volt will help drive broader uptake of the technology class,” Marie Thibault, a medtech analyst at BTIG, wrote in a note cited by industry publication MD+DI. MD+DI report
The clearance drops Abbott into a competitive field that already includes Boston Scientific, Medtronic and Johnson & Johnson, with smaller private players also chasing share, according to MD+DI.
Traders also continue to monitor Abbott’s diabetes-care franchise after the FDA flagged a potentially high-risk issue involving certain FreeStyle Libre 3 and Libre 3 Plus sensors that may show incorrect low glucose readings.
What investors watch next is simple: execution and timing. That includes any new disclosures on the Exact Sciences deal path, early commercial uptake of Volt in the U.S., and Abbott’s next earnings date, with Nasdaq’s calendar estimating a late-January report (derived from an algorithm rather than a company confirmation).
For chart watchers — investors who use price patterns to set entry and exit points — Tuesday’s low near $124.35 marks a near-term support area, while the $126-plus region is the immediate ceiling after the day’s high.
