Valneva (NASDAQ:VALN) Shares Gap Up – Here’s What Happened

Valneva SE (NASDAQ:VALN) shares gapped up prior to trading on Tuesday . The stock had previously closed at $6.71, but opened at $6.93. Valneva shares last traded at $6.78, with a volume of 1,473 shares.

Wall Street Analyst Weigh In

VALN has been the subject of a number of recent research reports. Guggenheim cut their price target on Valneva from $17.00 to $15.00 and set a “buy” rating for the company in a research note on Monday, March 24th. HC Wainwright reissued a “buy” rating and issued a $17.00 price objective on shares of Valneva in a report on Monday.

Valneva Stock Performance

The business has a 50-day simple moving average of $6.67 and a 200 day simple moving average of $5.59. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.70, a current ratio of 2.78 and a quick ratio of 2.25. The firm has a market cap of $550.54 million, a PE ratio of -52.12 and a beta of 1.93.

Valneva (NASDAQ:VALN) last released its earnings results on Thursday, March 20th. The company reported ($0.54) earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, missing the consensus estimate of ($0.22) by ($0.32). Valneva had a negative return on equity of 3.93% and a negative net margin of 4.35%. The firm had revenue of $56.48 million during the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $55.64 million. Equities research analysts forecast that Valneva SE will post 0.13 EPS for the current year.

Institutional Inflows and Outflows

A hedge fund recently raised its stake in Valneva stock. Wells Fargo & Company MN increased its holdings in shares of Valneva SE (NASDAQ:VALN) by 14.3% in the 4th quarter, according to its most recent Form 13F filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The institutional investor owned 246,766 shares of the company’s stock after purchasing an additional 30,859 shares during the quarter. Wells Fargo & Company MN owned approximately 0.30% of Valneva worth $1,079,000 at the end of the most recent reporting period. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 11.39% of the company’s stock.

Valneva Company Profile

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.