Valneva (NASDAQ:VALN) Shares Down 11.2% – Should You Sell?

Valneva SE (NASDAQ:VALN) was down 11.2% during mid-day trading on Friday . The company traded as low as $6.87 and last traded at $6.92. Approximately 79,836 shares traded hands during trading, an increase of 30% from the average daily volume of 61,567 shares. The stock had previously closed at $7.79.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

Separately, HC Wainwright reaffirmed a “buy” rating and set a $18.00 target price on shares of Valneva in a report on Friday, January 31st.

Valneva Stock Performance

The company has a fifty day moving average of $4.87 and a two-hundred day moving average of $5.67. The firm has a market capitalization of $569.23 million, a price-to-earnings ratio of -53.88 and a beta of 1.98. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.70, a quick ratio of 2.25 and a current ratio of 2.78.

Institutional Investors Weigh In On Valneva

A number of hedge funds and other institutional investors have recently modified their holdings of the company. Wells Fargo & Company MN grew its stake in shares of Valneva by 14.3% in the fourth quarter. Wells Fargo & Company MN now owns 246,766 shares of the company’s stock valued at $1,079,000 after acquiring an additional 30,859 shares in the last quarter. AlphaCentric Advisors LLC boosted its holdings in Valneva by 33.7% in the 3rd quarter. AlphaCentric Advisors LLC now owns 118,000 shares of the company’s stock valued at $717,000 after purchasing an additional 29,748 shares during the period. Finally, ABC Arbitrage SA acquired a new position in shares of Valneva during the 4th quarter worth approximately $84,000. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 11.39% of the company’s stock.

About Valneva

Valneva SE, a specialty vaccine company, develops, manufactures, and commercializes prophylactic vaccines for infectious diseases with unmet needs. It offers IXIARO, an inactivated Vero cell culture-derived Japanese encephalitis vaccine indicated for active immunization against Japanese encephalitis; DUKORAL, an oral vaccine for the prevention of diarrhea caused by Vibrio cholera and/or heat-labile toxin producing enterotoxigenic Escherichia coli bacterium; IXCHIQ, a single-dose, live-attenuated vaccine for the prevention of disease caused by chikungunya virus; and VLA2001, an inactivated whole-virus COVID-19 vaccine.