DURECT Co. (NASDAQ:DRRX) Short Interest Update

DURECT Co. (NASDAQ:DRRX) was the recipient of a large decrease in short interest during the month of September. As of September 30th, there was short interest totalling 945,900 shares, a decrease of 5.3% from the September 15th total of 999,300 shares. Currently, 3.2% of the shares of the company are sold short. Based on an average daily volume of 65,800 shares, the days-to-cover ratio is presently 14.4 days.

Institutional Trading of DURECT

A number of large investors have recently bought and sold shares of DRRX. International Assets Investment Management LLC boosted its stake in shares of DURECT by 41.3% in the 2nd quarter. International Assets Investment Management LLC now owns 21,550 shares of the specialty pharmaceutical company’s stock valued at $28,000 after purchasing an additional 6,300 shares in the last quarter. Accredited Investors Inc. bought a new stake in DURECT during the second quarter worth about $113,000. Tocqueville Asset Management L.P. increased its holdings in shares of DURECT by 10.8% during the first quarter. Tocqueville Asset Management L.P. now owns 256,220 shares of the specialty pharmaceutical company’s stock worth $310,000 after buying an additional 25,000 shares in the last quarter. Gagnon Securities LLC raised its stake in shares of DURECT by 6.0% in the first quarter. Gagnon Securities LLC now owns 380,131 shares of the specialty pharmaceutical company’s stock valued at $460,000 after acquiring an additional 21,425 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Richmond Brothers Inc. boosted its holdings in shares of DURECT by 48.2% in the 1st quarter. Richmond Brothers Inc. now owns 768,344 shares of the specialty pharmaceutical company’s stock worth $930,000 after acquiring an additional 250,050 shares in the last quarter. 28.03% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors.

Analyst Ratings Changes

Several analysts have issued reports on DRRX shares. StockNews.com initiated coverage on shares of DURECT in a research report on Friday. They issued a “sell” rating on the stock. HC Wainwright restated a “neutral” rating on shares of DURECT in a research note on Thursday, September 26th.

DURECT Stock Performance

NASDAQ:DRRX opened at $1.32 on Friday. The company has a 50-day moving average of $1.37 and a 200-day moving average of $1.30. DURECT has a 52 week low of $0.47 and a 52 week high of $3.14. The company has a market capitalization of $40.97 million, a price-to-earnings ratio of -1.39 and a beta of 1.13.

DURECT (NASDAQ:DRRX) last released its quarterly earnings data on Tuesday, August 13th. The specialty pharmaceutical company reported ($0.12) earnings per share for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of ($0.17) by $0.05. The company had revenue of $2.17 million for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $2.49 million. DURECT had a negative return on equity of 261.43% and a negative net margin of 187.80%. During the same period in the previous year, the business earned ($0.46) earnings per share. Sell-side analysts forecast that DURECT will post -0.78 EPS for the current year.

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.