Maplight Therapeutics, Inc. (NASDAQ:MPLT) Receives Average Recommendation of “Buy” from Analysts

Shares of Maplight Therapeutics, Inc. (NASDAQ:MPLT) have been given a consensus recommendation of “Buy” by the fifteen research firms that are presently covering the stock, Marketbeat reports. One equities research analyst has rated the stock with a sell recommendation, one has assigned a hold recommendation, nine have given a buy recommendation and four have assigned a strong buy recommendation to the company. The average 1-year target price among brokers that have covered the stock in the last year is $38.80.

MPLT has been the topic of several analyst reports. Lifesci Capital raised Maplight Therapeutics to a “strong-buy” rating in a research report on Thursday, May 14th. Stifel Nicolaus boosted their price objective on Maplight Therapeutics from $28.00 to $36.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a report on Monday, June 1st. Craig Hallum lowered their target price on Maplight Therapeutics from $43.00 to $40.00 and set a “buy” rating on the stock in a research note on Tuesday, June 23rd. Wall Street Zen lowered Maplight Therapeutics from a “hold” rating to a “sell” rating in a report on Saturday, March 21st. Finally, Needham & Company LLC lifted their price target on Maplight Therapeutics from $37.00 to $42.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a research report on Monday, June 22nd.

Insider Activity

In other news, insider James Woodruff Lillie sold 24,811 shares of Maplight Therapeutics stock in a transaction that occurred on Wednesday, May 6th. The shares were sold at an average price of $28.76, for a total transaction of $713,564.36. Following the completion of the transaction, the insider directly owned 243,450 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $7,001,622. The trade was a 9.25% decrease in their position. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available through the SEC website. The transaction was executed under a pre-arranged Rule 10b5-1 trading plan. Also, CEO Christopher A. Kroeger sold 118,235 shares of the stock in a transaction on Monday, May 18th. The stock was sold at an average price of $27.19, for a total transaction of $3,214,809.65. Following the sale, the chief executive officer directly owned 1,394,094 shares in the company, valued at $37,905,415.86. This trade represents a 7.82% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The SEC filing for this sale provides additional information. The transaction was executed under a pre-arranged Rule 10b5-1 trading plan. Insiders sold 495,244 shares of company stock worth $14,079,461 over the last 90 days. Company insiders own 3.80% of the company’s stock.

Institutional Investors Weigh In On Maplight Therapeutics

Institutional investors have recently modified their holdings of the business. Janus Henderson Group PLC acquired a new stake in Maplight Therapeutics in the 1st quarter valued at $1,113,000. ADAR1 Capital Management LLC acquired a new position in Maplight Therapeutics during the first quarter worth $7,622,000. Bank of New York Mellon Corp lifted its holdings in Maplight Therapeutics by 10.1% during the first quarter. Bank of New York Mellon Corp now owns 39,465 shares of the company’s stock valued at $802,000 after purchasing an additional 3,608 shares in the last quarter. T. Rowe Price Investment Management Inc. acquired a new stake in shares of Maplight Therapeutics in the fourth quarter valued at about $49,168,000. Finally, Invesco Ltd. acquired a new stake in shares of Maplight Therapeutics in the fourth quarter valued at about $228,000.

Maplight Therapeutics Stock Performance

Shares of NASDAQ MPLT opened at $37.09 on Friday. The company has a 50 day simple moving average of $29.91 and a two-hundred day simple moving average of $23.09. The stock has a market cap of $1.58 billion and a price-to-earnings ratio of -0.90. Maplight Therapeutics has a 12 month low of $12.24 and a 12 month high of $37.61.

Maplight Therapeutics (NASDAQ:MPLT) last released its quarterly earnings data on Thursday, May 14th. The company reported ($1.34) earnings per share for the quarter, missing analysts’ consensus estimates of ($0.91) by ($0.43). Analysts forecast that Maplight Therapeutics will post -5.13 EPS for the current year.

About Maplight Therapeutics

We are a clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company focused on improving the lives of patients suffering from debilitating central nervous system, or CNS, disorders. We were founded by globally recognized leaders in psychiatry and neuroscience research to address the lack of circuit-specific pharmacotherapies available for patients. Our discovery platform holds the potential to fill this void by identifying neural circuits causally linked to disease and targeting those circuits for therapeutic modulation.