Stock Traders Buy Large Volume of Virgin Galactic Call Options (NYSE:SPCE)

Virgin Galactic Holdings, Inc. (NYSE:SPCE) saw unusually large options trading on Tuesday. Stock traders purchased 24,209 call options on the stock. This is an increase of 167% compared to the average volume of 9,061 call options.

Institutional Investors Weigh In On Virgin Galactic

A number of hedge funds have recently added to or reduced their stakes in the company. FMR LLC grew its stake in Virgin Galactic by 29.7% in the third quarter. FMR LLC now owns 24,749 shares of the company’s stock valued at $151,000 after acquiring an additional 5,669 shares during the period. Quarry LP purchased a new position in shares of Virgin Galactic during the third quarter valued at approximately $49,000. Zacks Investment Management boosted its position in shares of Virgin Galactic by 40.3% during the third quarter. Zacks Investment Management now owns 35,439 shares of the company’s stock valued at $216,000 after buying an additional 10,172 shares during the last quarter. Virtu Financial LLC purchased a new position in shares of Virgin Galactic during the third quarter valued at approximately $70,000. Finally, Point72 Asia Singapore Pte. Ltd. purchased a new position in shares of Virgin Galactic during the second quarter valued at approximately $98,000. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 46.62% of the company’s stock.

Virgin Galactic Trading Down 2.1 %

Shares of SPCE stock opened at $5.38 on Thursday. The company has a market cap of $155.23 million, a P/E ratio of -0.31 and a beta of 1.72. The stock has a 50 day simple moving average of $6.33 and a two-hundred day simple moving average of $6.53. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.15, a quick ratio of 4.52 and a current ratio of 4.52. Virgin Galactic has a fifty-two week low of $5.06 and a fifty-two week high of $43.20.

Virgin Galactic (NYSE:SPCE) last issued its earnings results on Wednesday, November 6th. The company reported ($2.66) earnings per share for the quarter, topping analysts’ consensus estimates of ($4.10) by $1.44. Virgin Galactic had a negative return on equity of 88.09% and a negative net margin of 3,975.27%. The business had revenue of $0.40 million during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $0.47 million. During the same period in the previous year, the company posted ($5.60) earnings per share. Research analysts forecast that Virgin Galactic will post -16.05 earnings per share for the current year.

Analyst Ratings Changes

Separately, The Goldman Sachs Group reduced their price objective on Virgin Galactic from $53.00 to $47.00 and set a “neutral” rating on the stock in a research note on Thursday, October 10th. Two research analysts have rated the stock with a sell rating, three have assigned a hold rating and one has given a buy rating to the company. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, the stock currently has an average rating of “Hold” and an average target price of $25.50.

About Virgin Galactic

Virgin Galactic Holdings, Inc, an aerospace and space travel company, focuses on the development, manufacture, and operation of spaceships and related technologies. The company engages in the design and development, manufacturing, ground and flight testing, spaceflight operation, and post-flight maintenance of spaceflight systems for private individuals, researchers, and government agencies.