Moderna’s (MRNA) Overweight Rating Reiterated at Piper Sandler

Piper Sandler reaffirmed their overweight rating on shares of Moderna (NASDAQ:MRNA) in a research note published on Monday,Benzinga reports. Piper Sandler currently has a $69.00 target price on the stock, down from their prior target price of $115.00.

A number of other brokerages have also issued reports on MRNA. Leerink Partners cut their target price on Moderna from $60.00 to $48.00 and set an “underperform” rating on the stock in a research report on Tuesday, September 17th. Barclays cut their target price on Moderna from $125.00 to $111.00 and set an “overweight” rating on the stock in a research report on Friday, November 8th. Oppenheimer lowered Moderna from an “outperform” rating to a “market perform” rating in a research report on Friday, September 13th. HSBC raised Moderna from a “hold” rating to a “buy” rating and set a $58.00 target price on the stock in a research report on Monday. Finally, Sanford C. Bernstein assumed coverage on Moderna in a research report on Thursday, October 17th. They set a “market perform” rating and a $55.00 price target on the stock. Three investment analysts have rated the stock with a sell rating, thirteen have issued a hold rating, five have issued a buy rating and one has assigned a strong buy rating to the company. According to MarketBeat, the company has a consensus rating of “Hold” and an average target price of $84.00.

Moderna Stock Performance

MRNA stock opened at $36.94 on Monday. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.05, a quick ratio of 4.20 and a current ratio of 4.39. The stock has a market capitalization of $14.22 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of -6.41 and a beta of 1.69. Moderna has a 1 year low of $35.80 and a 1 year high of $170.47. The stock’s fifty day moving average is $56.98 and its two-hundred day moving average is $95.46.

Moderna (NASDAQ:MRNA) last issued its quarterly earnings results on Thursday, November 7th. The company reported $0.03 EPS for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of ($1.89) by $1.92. Moderna had a negative net margin of 43.77% and a negative return on equity of 17.68%. The firm had revenue of $1.90 billion for the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $1.25 billion. During the same period in the previous year, the business earned ($1.39) earnings per share. Moderna’s revenue for the quarter was up 3.8% compared to the same quarter last year. On average, research analysts predict that Moderna will post -9.43 EPS for the current year.

Insider Buying and Selling at Moderna

In other news, CFO James M. Mock sold 715 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction on Monday, October 7th. The stock was sold at an average price of $60.12, for a total value of $42,985.80. Following the transaction, the chief financial officer now directly owns 9,505 shares in the company, valued at $571,440.60. This trade represents a 7.00 % decrease in their position. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available at this link. In the last ninety days, insiders have sold 2,930 shares of company stock worth $217,170. Insiders own 15.20% of the company’s stock.

Institutional Inflows and Outflows

Several hedge funds and other institutional investors have recently made changes to their positions in MRNA. State Street Corp raised its stake in Moderna by 12.1% during the 3rd quarter. State Street Corp now owns 16,847,212 shares of the company’s stock worth $1,125,899,000 after buying an additional 1,823,276 shares during the period. Geode Capital Management LLC raised its stake in Moderna by 2.6% during the 3rd quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC now owns 7,069,580 shares of the company’s stock worth $470,670,000 after buying an additional 178,115 shares during the period. Wellington Management Group LLP raised its stake in Moderna by 21.0% during the 3rd quarter. Wellington Management Group LLP now owns 5,224,685 shares of the company’s stock worth $349,166,000 after buying an additional 906,114 shares during the period. UBS AM a distinct business unit of UBS ASSET MANAGEMENT AMERICAS LLC raised its stake in Moderna by 0.5% during the 3rd quarter. UBS AM a distinct business unit of UBS ASSET MANAGEMENT AMERICAS LLC now owns 3,890,812 shares of the company’s stock worth $260,023,000 after buying an additional 19,819 shares during the period. Finally, Capital World Investors raised its stake in Moderna by 0.5% during the 1st quarter. Capital World Investors now owns 3,648,117 shares of the company’s stock worth $388,743,000 after buying an additional 18,728 shares during the period. 75.33% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors.

About Moderna

Moderna, Inc, a biotechnology company, discovers, develops, and commercializes messenger RNA therapeutics and vaccines for the treatment of infectious diseases, immuno-oncology, rare diseases, autoimmune, and cardiovascular diseases in the United States, Europe, and internationally. Its respiratory vaccines include COVID-19, influenza, and respiratory syncytial virus, spikevax, and hMPV/PIV3 vaccines; latent vaccines comprise cytomegalovirus, epstein-barr virus, herpes simplex virus, varicella zoster virus, and human immunodeficiency virus vaccines; public health vaccines consists of Zika, Nipah, Mpox vaccines; and infectious diseases vaccines, such as lyme and norovirus vaccines.