Lake Street Capital Initiates Coverage on OncoCyte (NASDAQ:OCX)

Equities researchers at Lake Street Capital assumed coverage on shares of OncoCyte (NASDAQ:OCX) in a report issued on Friday, Marketbeat Ratings reports. The brokerage set a “buy” rating and a $5.00 price target on the stock. Lake Street Capital’s price objective indicates a potential upside of 55.76% from the company’s current price.

A number of other brokerages have also commented on OCX. Needham & Company LLC reiterated a “buy” rating and set a $4.25 price target on shares of OncoCyte in a report on Tuesday, March 25th. Stephens restated an “equal weight” rating and set a $4.00 price objective on shares of OncoCyte in a report on Tuesday, March 25th. Finally, StockNews.com started coverage on shares of OncoCyte in a research note on Monday, January 13th. They issued a “sell” rating for the company. One investment analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, one has given a hold rating and three have assigned a buy rating to the company’s stock. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, the company presently has a consensus rating of “Hold” and a consensus price target of $4.56.

OncoCyte Trading Down 0.3 %

NASDAQ:OCX opened at $3.21 on Friday. The firm has a market capitalization of $56.02 million, a PE ratio of -0.73 and a beta of 0.79. OncoCyte has a 1 year low of $1.92 and a 1 year high of $4.75. The firm’s fifty day simple moving average is $2.79 and its 200 day simple moving average is $2.72.

OncoCyte (NASDAQ:OCX) last issued its quarterly earnings results on Monday, March 24th. The company reported $0.48 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of ($0.40) by $0.88. OncoCyte had a negative return on equity of 269.32% and a negative net margin of 6,122.29%. The company had revenue of $1.49 million for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $0.16 million. As a group, analysts anticipate that OncoCyte will post -2.57 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Insiders Place Their Bets

In other OncoCyte news, major shareholder Patrick W. Smith bought 1,077,600 shares of OncoCyte stock in a transaction dated Friday, February 7th. The shares were acquired at an average cost of $2.05 per share, with a total value of $2,209,080.00. Following the acquisition, the insider now directly owns 2,872,671 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $5,888,975.55. The trade was a 60.03 % increase in their ownership of the stock. The purchase was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available through this link. Also, CFO Andrea S. James acquired 97,561 shares of OncoCyte stock in a transaction on Friday, February 7th. The stock was acquired at an average cost of $2.05 per share, for a total transaction of $200,000.05. Following the purchase, the chief financial officer now owns 151,231 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $310,023.55. This represents a 181.78 % increase in their position. The disclosure for this purchase can be found here. Insiders acquired a total of 1,185,625 shares of company stock worth $2,430,510 over the last quarter. Company insiders own 1.58% of the company’s stock.

Institutional Investors Weigh In On OncoCyte

A number of hedge funds have recently added to or reduced their stakes in OCX. Ground Swell Capital LLC acquired a new position in OncoCyte during the 4th quarter worth $26,000. Two Sigma Securities LLC acquired a new position in shares of OncoCyte during the fourth quarter valued at $31,000. FNY Investment Advisers LLC boosted its holdings in OncoCyte by 15.1% in the fourth quarter. FNY Investment Advisers LLC now owns 49,377 shares of the company’s stock valued at $117,000 after acquiring an additional 6,481 shares during the last quarter. Wealthedge Investment Advisors LLC acquired a new stake in OncoCyte in the fourth quarter worth about $126,000. Finally, Geode Capital Management LLC raised its holdings in OncoCyte by 12.2% during the 3rd quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC now owns 103,980 shares of the company’s stock worth $296,000 after purchasing an additional 11,289 shares during the last quarter. Institutional investors own 55.35% of the company’s stock.

OncoCyte Company Profile

OncoCyte Corporation, a precision diagnostics company, focuses on development and commercialization of proprietary tests in the United States and internationally. The company is developing DetermaIO, a gene expression test that assesses the tumor microenvironment to predict response to immunotherapies; DetermaCNI, a blood-based monitoring tool for monitoring therapeutic efficacy in cancer patients; and VitaGraft, a blood-based solid organ transplantation monitoring test.