Stock Traders Purchase High Volume of Call Options on Moderna (NASDAQ:MRNA)

Moderna, Inc. (NASDAQ:MRNA) was the target of unusually large options trading activity on Friday. Traders purchased 113,636 call options on the stock. This is an increase of 47% compared to the typical daily volume of 77,233 call options.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

Several brokerages have commented on MRNA. Royal Bank Of Canada raised their price objective on Moderna from $25.00 to $30.00 and gave the company a “sector perform” rating in a report on Tuesday, February 17th. UBS Group reaffirmed a “neutral” rating and set a $36.00 target price on shares of Moderna in a research note on Monday, February 16th. The Goldman Sachs Group increased their target price on Moderna from $36.00 to $41.00 and gave the company a “neutral” rating in a research report on Tuesday, February 17th. Morgan Stanley set a $30.00 price target on shares of Moderna in a research note on Monday, February 16th. Finally, Leerink Partners reissued an “underperform” rating on shares of Moderna in a report on Friday, January 30th. Two analysts have rated the stock with a Buy rating, thirteen have given a Hold rating and five have given a Sell rating to the company. According to data from MarketBeat, the stock has a consensus rating of “Reduce” and an average target price of $32.33.

Insider Activity at Moderna

In related news, President Stephen Hoge sold 160,009 shares of Moderna stock in a transaction dated Monday, February 23rd. The stock was sold at an average price of $48.84, for a total value of $7,814,839.56. Following the completion of the transaction, the president owned 1,457,427 shares in the company, valued at $71,180,734.68. The trade was a 9.89% decrease in their position. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available at the SEC website. 10.80% of the stock is owned by company insiders.

Institutional Inflows and Outflows

Several hedge funds have recently added to or reduced their stakes in MRNA. Corient Private Wealth LLC grew its holdings in shares of Moderna by 24.1% during the fourth quarter. Corient Private Wealth LLC now owns 34,805 shares of the company’s stock worth $1,026,000 after buying an additional 6,751 shares in the last quarter. Caitong International Asset Management Co. Ltd lifted its stake in shares of Moderna by 21.9% in the fourth quarter. Caitong International Asset Management Co. Ltd now owns 2,153 shares of the company’s stock worth $63,000 after buying an additional 387 shares in the last quarter. Sankala Group LLC purchased a new position in shares of Moderna in the fourth quarter worth about $240,000. Virtu Financial LLC acquired a new position in Moderna during the fourth quarter worth about $2,425,000. Finally, Hamilton Wealth LLC acquired a new position in Moderna during the fourth quarter worth about $3,098,000. 75.33% of the stock is owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

Moderna Price Performance

NASDAQ:MRNA traded down $4.01 during trading hours on Friday, hitting $49.56. 7,089,998 shares of the stock were exchanged, compared to its average volume of 8,942,303. Moderna has a 52-week low of $22.28 and a 52-week high of $59.55. The firm’s fifty day moving average price is $48.66 and its 200 day moving average price is $35.12. The company has a current ratio of 3.29, a quick ratio of 3.22 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.07. The company has a market cap of $19.57 billion, a P/E ratio of -6.82 and a beta of 1.29.

Moderna (NASDAQ:MRNA) last announced its earnings results on Friday, February 13th. The company reported ($2.11) EPS for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of ($2.79) by $0.68. The business had revenue of $678.00 million during the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $611.14 million. Moderna had a negative return on equity of 30.15% and a negative net margin of 145.16%.The business’s revenue was down 33.2% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same quarter in the prior year, the firm earned ($2.91) earnings per share. As a group, equities research analysts anticipate that Moderna will post -9.61 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Moderna Company Profile

Moderna, Inc is a biotechnology company headquartered in Cambridge, Massachusetts, specializing in messenger RNA (mRNA) therapeutics and vaccines. The company’s platform leverages synthetic mRNA to instruct cells to produce proteins that can prevent or treat diseases. Since its founding in 2010, Moderna has advanced from early-stage research into a broad pipeline of vaccine and therapeutic candidates designed to address infectious diseases, rare genetic disorders and chronic illnesses.

Moderna’s flagship product is its mRNA-based COVID-19 vaccine, which was the first of its kind to receive emergency use authorization and later full approval in multiple jurisdictions.