Valneva (NASDAQ:VALN) Shares Gap Down to $8.50

Valneva SE (NASDAQ:VALN) shares gapped down prior to trading on Tuesday . The stock had previously closed at $8.50, but opened at $8.15. Valneva shares last traded at $8.06, with a volume of 9,082 shares traded.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

A number of equities analysts recently issued reports on the company. Guggenheim cut their target price on Valneva from $18.00 to $17.00 and set a “buy” rating on the stock in a report on Friday, March 22nd. HC Wainwright restated a “buy” rating and set a $26.00 price objective on shares of Valneva in a research note on Thursday, March 21st.

Valneva Stock Down 5.8 %

The company has a current ratio of 1.65, a quick ratio of 1.37 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.04. The stock has a market capitalization of $556.37 million, a PE ratio of -5.07 and a beta of 2.25. The stock’s fifty day simple moving average is $7.69 and its 200-day simple moving average is $9.69.

Valneva (NASDAQ:VALN) last posted its quarterly earnings data on Wednesday, March 20th. The company reported ($0.50) earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, missing analysts’ consensus estimates of $0.20 by ($0.70). The firm had revenue of $45.12 million for the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $45.06 million. Valneva had a negative return on equity of 59.48% and a negative net margin of 65.99%. As a group, sell-side analysts forecast that Valneva SE will post 0.11 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Institutional Investors Weigh In On Valneva

Hedge funds and other institutional investors have recently added to or reduced their stakes in the company. Jane Street Group LLC increased its position in shares of Valneva by 85.9% during the first quarter. Jane Street Group LLC now owns 16,584 shares of the company’s stock valued at $569,000 after buying an additional 7,664 shares during the period. Bank of America Corp DE purchased a new position in shares of Valneva during the first quarter worth about $858,000. Finally, UBS Group AG purchased a new position in shares of Valneva during the second quarter worth about $31,000. 11.39% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors.

About Valneva

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.