DURECT (NASDAQ:DRRX) Earns Neutral Rating from HC Wainwright

DURECT (NASDAQ:DRRX)‘s stock had its “neutral” rating reissued by equities researchers at HC Wainwright in a research report issued on Thursday,Benzinga reports.

Separately, StockNews.com assumed coverage on shares of DURECT in a research report on Thursday. They set a “sell” rating for the company.

DURECT Price Performance

NASDAQ:DRRX opened at $0.80 on Thursday. The firm has a 50-day moving average of $0.80 and a two-hundred day moving average of $1.00. The stock has a market cap of $24.83 million, a P/E ratio of -1.31 and a beta of 0.91. DURECT has a 1-year low of $0.70 and a 1-year high of $1.88.

DURECT (NASDAQ:DRRX) last issued its quarterly earnings results on Wednesday, March 26th. The specialty pharmaceutical company reported ($0.06) EPS for the quarter, missing analysts’ consensus estimates of $0.06 by ($0.12). DURECT had a negative net margin of 198.58% and a negative return on equity of 300.62%. The business had revenue of $2.30 million during the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $6.91 million. As a group, equities analysts expect that DURECT will post -0.5 earnings per share for the current year.

Institutional Trading of DURECT

Several institutional investors and hedge funds have recently bought and sold shares of DRRX. Geode Capital Management LLC lifted its stake in DURECT by 4.8% during the third quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC now owns 319,905 shares of the specialty pharmaceutical company’s stock worth $429,000 after purchasing an additional 14,658 shares during the last quarter. Richmond Brothers Inc. raised its holdings in shares of DURECT by 12.2% during the fourth quarter. Richmond Brothers Inc. now owns 1,281,176 shares of the specialty pharmaceutical company’s stock worth $961,000 after purchasing an additional 138,920 shares during the period. Finally, Jane Street Group LLC lifted its position in shares of DURECT by 266.0% in the 4th quarter. Jane Street Group LLC now owns 39,196 shares of the specialty pharmaceutical company’s stock worth $29,000 after buying an additional 28,486 shares during the last quarter. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 28.03% of the company’s stock.

About DURECT

DURECT Corporation, a biopharmaceutical company, develops medicines based on its epigenetic regulator program. The company's lead product larsucosterol (DUR-928), an endogenous, orally bioavailable small molecule that is in Phase IIb clinical trial to play a regulatory role in lipid metabolism, stress and inflammatory responses, and cell death and survival to treat alcohol-associated hepatitis, as well as completed Phase Ib clinical trial to treat patients with nonalcoholic steatohepatitis.