Valneva (NASDAQ:VALN) Shares Gap Down Following Analyst Downgrade

Valneva SE (NASDAQ:VALN)’s stock price gapped down before the market opened on Tuesday after Guggenheim lowered their price target on the stock from $17.00 to $15.00. The stock had previously closed at $7.43, but opened at $7.28. Guggenheim currently has a buy rating on the stock. Valneva shares last traded at $7.03, with a volume of 5,928 shares.

Separately, HC Wainwright reissued a “buy” rating and issued a $17.00 price target on shares of Valneva in a research note on Friday, March 21st.

Institutional Investors Weigh In On Valneva

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

Valneva Price Performance

The company’s 50-day moving average price is $6.45 and its 200-day moving average price is $5.59. The company has a quick ratio of 2.25, a current ratio of 2.78 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.70. The firm has a market cap of $574.52 million, a price-to-earnings ratio of -54.38 and a beta of 1.93.

Valneva (NASDAQ:VALN) last announced its earnings results on Thursday, March 20th. The company reported ($0.54) earnings per share 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 business had revenue of $56.48 million for the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $55.64 million. On average, equities research analysts forecast that Valneva SE will post 0.13 EPS for the current year.

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.