Twist Bioscience (NASDAQ:TWST) Trading Up 6.8% on Analyst Upgrade

Twist Bioscience Corporation (NASDAQ:TWST) shares shot up 6.8% on Tuesday after Canaccord Genuity Group upgraded the stock to a strong-buy rating. The company traded as high as $86.94 and last traded at $86.26. 477,913 shares traded hands during trading, a decline of 66% from the average session volume of 1,414,539 shares. The stock had previously closed at $80.79.

TWST has been the subject of a number of other reports. Piper Sandler began coverage on Twist Bioscience in a research note on Thursday. They set an “overweight” rating and a $85.00 price target for the company. Robert W. Baird raised their price target on Twist Bioscience from $50.00 to $65.00 and gave the stock an “outperform” rating in a research note on Tuesday, May 5th. Guggenheim raised their target price on Twist Bioscience from $55.00 to $60.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a report on Tuesday, May 5th. Leerink Partners set a $80.00 target price on Twist Bioscience in a report on Friday, May 22nd. Finally, TD Cowen raised their target price on Twist Bioscience from $68.00 to $89.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a report on Monday. One investment analyst has rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, eight have given a Buy rating and one has issued a Sell rating to the company. According to data from MarketBeat, Twist Bioscience presently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus price target of $71.60.

Insiders Place Their Bets

In related news, CFO Adam Laponis sold 4,000 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Friday, April 17th. The stock was sold at an average price of $60.00, for a total value of $240,000.00. Following the transaction, the chief financial officer directly owned 118,694 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $7,121,640. This trade represents a 3.26% decrease in their position. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is accessible through this link. The transaction was executed under a pre-arranged Rule 10b5-1 trading plan. Also, CEO Emily M. Leproust sold 8,061 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Wednesday, April 22nd. The shares were sold at an average price of $65.29, for a total value of $526,302.69. Following the completion of the transaction, the chief executive officer directly owned 858,887 shares in the company, valued at $56,076,732.23. The trade was a 0.93% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale is available in the SEC filing. The transaction was executed under a pre-arranged Rule 10b5-1 trading plan. Insiders sold 33,170 shares of company stock worth $1,948,964 in the last three months. 3.08% of the stock is owned by insiders.

Institutional Inflows and Outflows

A number of institutional investors have recently made changes to their positions in the stock. Stifel Financial Corp raised its stake in shares of Twist Bioscience by 3.6% in the 4th quarter. Stifel Financial Corp now owns 7,769 shares of the company’s stock valued at $246,000 after acquiring an additional 271 shares in the last quarter. D.A. Davidson & CO. increased its position in Twist Bioscience by 1.2% in the 4th quarter. D.A. Davidson & CO. now owns 25,237 shares of the company’s stock worth $801,000 after buying an additional 305 shares during the period. CWM LLC increased its position in Twist Bioscience by 9.4% in the 4th quarter. CWM LLC now owns 4,738 shares of the company’s stock worth $150,000 after buying an additional 407 shares during the period. Smartleaf Asset Management LLC increased its position in Twist Bioscience by 70.6% in the 3rd quarter. Smartleaf Asset Management LLC now owns 1,068 shares of the company’s stock worth $29,000 after buying an additional 442 shares during the period. Finally, California State Teachers Retirement System increased its position in Twist Bioscience by 0.8% in the 2nd quarter. California State Teachers Retirement System now owns 54,187 shares of the company’s stock worth $1,994,000 after buying an additional 442 shares during the period.

Twist Bioscience Trading Up 5.7%

The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.03, a quick ratio of 2.42 and a current ratio of 2.70. The company has a 50-day simple moving average of $60.28 and a 200 day simple moving average of $47.93. The company has a market capitalization of $5.32 billion, a P/E ratio of -65.05 and a beta of 2.23.

Twist Bioscience (NASDAQ:TWST) last issued its quarterly earnings results on Monday, May 4th. The company reported ($0.71) EPS for the quarter, missing the consensus estimate of ($0.49) by ($0.22). The business had revenue of $110.72 million during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $107.64 million. Twist Bioscience had a negative return on equity of 26.73% and a negative net margin of 19.85%.The business’s quarterly revenue was up 19.3% on a year-over-year basis. During the same period in the prior year, the firm earned ($0.66) earnings per share. Sell-side analysts expect that Twist Bioscience Corporation will post -2.02 earnings per share for the current year.

About Twist Bioscience

Twist Bioscience Corporation is a synthetic biology company specializing in the development and commercialization of DNA-based products and solutions. Founded in 2013 and headquartered in South San Francisco, California, the company has pioneered a proprietary silicon-based DNA synthesis platform designed for high-throughput production of synthetic genes and oligonucleotides. Twist leverages semiconductor manufacturing techniques to enable precise, scalable synthesis of DNA at speeds and volumes unattainable with traditional methods.

At the core of Twist’s offering is its proprietary platform that automates the synthesis of custom DNA fragments, gene libraries, and long oligonucleotides.