Moderna (NASDAQ:MRNA) Receives Overweight Rating from Piper Sandler

Piper Sandler reaffirmed their overweight rating on shares of Moderna (NASDAQ:MRNA) in a research note released on Friday morning, Benzinga reports. Piper Sandler currently has a $157.00 price objective on the stock, down from their previous price objective of $214.00.

Several other equities research analysts have also recently commented on MRNA. Needham & Company LLC reaffirmed a hold rating on shares of Moderna in a research report on Thursday. Evercore ISI reissued an in-line rating and set a $120.00 price target on shares of Moderna in a research report on Thursday, June 27th. Canaccord Genuity Group lifted their price target on shares of Moderna from $91.00 to $106.00 and gave the company a hold rating in a research report on Friday, May 3rd. Jefferies Financial Group reissued a buy rating and set a $125.00 price target on shares of Moderna in a research report on Tuesday, April 9th. Finally, Oppenheimer lifted their price target on shares of Moderna from $163.00 to $179.00 and gave the company an outperform rating in a research report on Wednesday, June 12th. Two analysts have rated the stock with a sell rating, nine have issued a hold rating and eight have given a buy rating to the company. According to MarketBeat, the company currently has an average rating of Hold and a consensus price target of $126.59.

Moderna Trading Down 8.1 %

Shares of NASDAQ:MRNA traded down $7.59 on Friday, hitting $86.58. The company had a trading volume of 10,332,912 shares, compared to its average volume of 3,496,157. The firm’s 50-day simple moving average is $129.81 and its two-hundred day simple moving average is $115.02. Moderna has a 1 year low of $62.55 and a 1 year high of $170.47. The company has a quick ratio of 3.91, a current ratio of 4.09 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.05. The firm has a market capitalization of $33.18 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of -5.53 and a beta of 1.67.

Moderna (NASDAQ:MRNA) last posted its earnings results on Thursday, August 1st. The company reported ($3.33) EPS for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of ($3.47) by $0.14. Moderna had a negative net margin of 116.18% and a negative return on equity of 21.35%. The firm had revenue of $241.00 million during the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $128.41 million. During the same period last year, the company posted ($3.62) EPS. The company’s quarterly revenue was down 29.9% compared to the same quarter last year. Equities analysts anticipate that Moderna will post -7.46 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Insider Transactions at Moderna

In other news, CFO James M. Mock sold 648 shares of Moderna stock in a transaction that occurred on Tuesday, May 28th. The shares were sold at an average price of $162.47, for a total value of $105,280.56. Following the completion of the sale, the chief financial officer now directly owns 5,726 shares in the company, valued at $930,303.22. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is accessible through this hyperlink. In related news, Director Noubar Afeyan sold 15,000 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Wednesday, July 31st. The shares were sold at an average price of $119.96, for a total transaction of $1,799,400.00. Following the completion of the sale, the director now directly owns 2,224,015 shares in the company, valued at $266,792,839.40. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is accessible through this link. Also, CFO James M. Mock sold 648 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction that occurred 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 sale, the chief financial officer now owns 5,726 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $930,303.22. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders sold 396,239 shares of company stock worth $55,563,937 over the last three months. 15.70% of the stock is currently owned by company insiders.

Institutional Trading of Moderna

Several large investors have recently added to or reduced their stakes in MRNA. Vanguard Group Inc. lifted its holdings in Moderna by 15.1% during 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 in the last quarter. Wellington Management Group LLP lifted its holdings in Moderna by 28.8% during the fourth quarter. Wellington Management Group LLP now owns 7,225,579 shares of the company’s stock valued at $718,584,000 after purchasing an additional 1,614,460 shares in the last quarter. Capital World Investors lifted its holdings in Moderna by 0.5% during the first quarter. Capital World Investors now owns 3,648,117 shares of the company’s stock valued at $388,743,000 after purchasing an additional 18,728 shares in the last quarter. Norges Bank purchased a new position in Moderna during the fourth quarter valued at approximately $347,565,000. Finally, Mawer Investment Management Ltd. lifted its holdings in Moderna by 6.7% during the first quarter. Mawer Investment Management Ltd. now owns 1,916,570 shares of the company’s stock valued at $204,230,000 after purchasing an additional 120,621 shares in the last quarter. 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.