89bio (NASDAQ:ETNB) Announces Quarterly Earnings Results, Misses Expectations By $0.42 EPS

89bio (NASDAQ:ETNB) announced its quarterly earnings results on Thursday. The company reported ($1.02) earnings per share for the quarter, missing the consensus estimate of ($0.60) by ($0.42), Zacks reports.

89bio Stock Down 5.5 %

Shares of ETNB opened at $7.85 on Friday. The firm has a market capitalization of $833.09 million, a P/E ratio of -2.70 and a beta of 1.17. 89bio has a 12-month low of $5.99 and a 12-month high of $13.71. The company has a current ratio of 11.66, a quick ratio of 11.66 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.09. The firm has a fifty day moving average price of $8.80 and a 200-day moving average price of $8.48.

Analyst Ratings Changes

Several equities research analysts recently weighed in on the stock. Raymond James upgraded shares of 89bio to a “strong-buy” rating in a research report on Thursday, December 12th. UBS Group boosted their price target on shares of 89bio from $25.00 to $38.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a research report on Friday, January 31st. Weiss Ratings restated a “sell (d-)” rating on shares of 89bio in a research report on Friday. Wolfe Research started coverage on shares of 89bio in a research report on Tuesday, February 4th. They issued an “outperform” rating on the stock. Finally, Cantor Fitzgerald reaffirmed an “overweight” rating and set a $29.00 price objective on shares of 89bio in a research note on Thursday, January 2nd. One research analyst has rated the stock with a hold rating, six have given a buy rating and one has issued a strong buy rating to the stock. According to MarketBeat.com, the company has a consensus rating of “Buy” and a consensus price target of $30.29.

Insider Activity

In related news, insider Quoc Le-Nguyen sold 10,963 shares of 89bio stock in a transaction dated Wednesday, January 15th. The stock was sold at an average price of $6.49, for a total value of $71,149.87. Following the completion of the sale, the insider now directly owns 271,833 shares in the company, valued at $1,764,196.17. The trade was a 3.88 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which is available through the SEC website. Also, Director Ra Capital Management, L.P. acquired 5,714,285 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Thursday, January 30th. The stock was purchased at an average price of $8.75 per share, with a total value of $49,999,993.75. Following the completion of the acquisition, the director now directly owns 19,554,319 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $171,100,291.25. This represents a 41.29 % increase in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this purchase can be found here. Insiders own 2.80% of the company’s stock.

About 89bio

89bio, Inc, a clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company, focuses on the development and commercialization of therapies for the treatment of liver and cardio-metabolic diseases. Its lead product candidate is pegozafermin, a glycoPEGylated analog of fibroblast growth factor 21 for the treatment of nonalcoholic steatohepatitis; and for the treatment of severe hypertriglyceridemia.