Moderna (NASDAQ:MRNA) Price Target Lowered to $125.00 at Royal Bank of Canada

Moderna (NASDAQ:MRNA) had its price objective decreased by investment analysts at Royal Bank of Canada from $160.00 to $125.00 in a research note issued to investors on Friday, Benzinga reports. The brokerage presently has an “outperform” rating on the stock. Royal Bank of Canada’s target price would suggest a potential upside of 44.38% from the stock’s previous close.

A number of other equities analysts also recently commented on the company. UBS Group boosted their price objective on Moderna from $143.00 to $151.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a research report on Tuesday, May 7th. Jefferies Financial Group reissued a “buy” rating and set a $125.00 price objective on shares of Moderna in a research report on Tuesday, April 9th. Canaccord Genuity Group boosted their price objective on Moderna from $91.00 to $106.00 and gave the stock a “hold” rating in a research report on Friday, May 3rd. The Goldman Sachs Group lowered their price objective on Moderna from $204.00 to $178.00 and set a “buy” rating for the company in a research report on Friday. Finally, Piper Sandler reissued an “overweight” rating and set a $157.00 price objective (down from $214.00) on shares of Moderna in a research report on Friday. Two equities research analysts have rated the stock with a sell rating, nine have given a hold rating and eight have assigned a buy rating to the company. According to data from MarketBeat.com, the stock currently has a consensus rating of “Hold” and a consensus price target of $126.59.

Moderna Trading Down 8.1 %

NASDAQ MRNA traded down $7.59 during trading on Friday, hitting $86.58. The stock had a trading volume of 10,318,361 shares, compared to its average volume of 4,129,012. The company has a market capitalization of $33.18 billion, a PE ratio of -5.53 and a beta of 1.67. The company has a quick ratio of 3.91, a current ratio of 4.03 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.04. The firm has a 50 day moving average price of $131.41 and a 200 day moving average price of $115.16. Moderna has a twelve month low of $62.55 and a twelve month high of $170.47.

Moderna (NASDAQ:MRNA) last released its earnings results on Thursday, August 1st. The company reported ($3.33) earnings per share for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of ($3.47) by $0.14. The company had revenue of $241.00 million during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $128.41 million. Moderna had a negative return on equity of 20.10% and a negative net margin of 115.82%. Moderna’s revenue was down 29.9% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same period in the previous year, the company posted ($3.62) EPS. As a group, equities research analysts forecast that Moderna will post -7.46 earnings per share for the current year.

Insiders Place Their Bets

In other Moderna news, CFO James M. Mock sold 648 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction on Tuesday, May 28th. The shares were sold at an average price of $162.47, for a total transaction of $105,280.56. Following the transaction, the chief financial officer now directly owns 5,726 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $930,303.22. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available at the SEC website. In other news, CFO James M. Mock sold 648 shares of Moderna stock in a transaction dated Tuesday, May 28th. The shares were sold at an average price of $162.47, for a total value of $105,280.56. Following the sale, the chief financial officer now owns 5,726 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $930,303.22. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which can be accessed through this hyperlink. Also, Director Noubar Afeyan sold 15,000 shares of Moderna stock in a transaction dated Wednesday, May 8th. The shares were sold at an average price of $121.68, for a total transaction of $1,825,200.00. Following the completion of the sale, the director now directly owns 2,011,931 shares in the company, valued at approximately $244,811,764.08. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. In the last three months, insiders have sold 381,239 shares of company stock valued at $53,764,537. Insiders own 15.70% of the company’s stock.

Institutional Trading of Moderna

Several hedge funds and other institutional investors have recently made changes to their positions in the company. Vanguard Group Inc. lifted its stake in shares of Moderna by 15.1% in the first quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 39,036,872 shares of the company’s stock valued at $4,159,769,000 after purchasing an additional 5,129,800 shares during the period. Wellington Management Group LLP raised its position in Moderna by 28.8% during the fourth quarter. Wellington Management Group LLP now owns 7,225,579 shares of the company’s stock worth $718,584,000 after acquiring an additional 1,614,460 shares during the last quarter. Capital World Investors raised its position in Moderna by 0.5% during the first quarter. Capital World Investors now owns 3,648,117 shares of the company’s stock worth $388,743,000 after acquiring an additional 18,728 shares during the last quarter. Norges Bank acquired a new position in Moderna during the fourth quarter worth about $347,565,000. Finally, Mawer Investment Management Ltd. raised its position in Moderna by 6.7% during the first quarter. Mawer Investment Management Ltd. now owns 1,916,570 shares of the company’s stock worth $204,230,000 after acquiring an additional 120,621 shares during the last quarter. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 75.33% of the company’s stock.

Moderna Company Profile

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.