Moderna Sees Unusually High Options Volume (NASDAQ:MRNA)

Moderna, Inc. (NASDAQ:MRNA) was the recipient of unusually large options trading activity on Thursday. Investors purchased 72,594 put options on the company. This represents an increase of 60% compared to the typical daily volume of 45,264 put options.

Insider Buying and Selling at Moderna

In other news, Director Noubar Afeyan sold 15,000 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Wednesday, June 26th. The shares were sold at an average price of $127.22, for a total transaction of $1,908,300.00. Following the completion of the sale, the director now owns 2,284,015 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $290,572,388.30. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which is accessible through this hyperlink. In other Moderna news, CFO James M. Mock sold 1,321 shares of Moderna stock in a transaction dated Wednesday, August 28th. The stock was sold at an average price of $79.39, for a total value of $104,874.19. Following the transaction, the chief financial officer now owns 8,600 shares in the company, valued at $682,754. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which is accessible through this hyperlink. Also, Director Noubar Afeyan sold 15,000 shares of the stock in a transaction dated Wednesday, June 26th. The stock was sold at an average price of $127.22, for a total transaction of $1,908,300.00. Following the completion of the transaction, the director now directly owns 2,284,015 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $290,572,388.30. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders have sold a total of 93,158 shares of company stock valued at $11,167,312 in the last ninety days. 15.70% of the stock is currently owned by company insiders.

Institutional Trading of Moderna

Several hedge funds have recently modified their holdings of MRNA. Ashton Thomas Private Wealth LLC acquired a new stake in Moderna in the second quarter worth $26,000. Family Firm Inc. bought a new stake in Moderna in the 2nd quarter valued at about $33,000. Cedar Wealth Management LLC raised its stake in Moderna by 45.0% during the 1st quarter. Cedar Wealth Management LLC now owns 290 shares of the company’s stock worth $31,000 after buying an additional 90 shares during the period. Westside Investment Management Inc. bought a new position in Moderna in the first quarter worth approximately $32,000. Finally, Bank & Trust Co acquired a new stake in Moderna in the second quarter valued at approximately $36,000. Institutional investors own 75.33% of the company’s stock.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

MRNA has been the subject of several research reports. Jefferies Financial Group downgraded shares of Moderna from a “buy” rating to a “hold” rating and dropped their price objective for the company from $120.00 to $65.00 in a research note on Friday, September 13th. Oppenheimer cut Moderna from an “outperform” rating to a “market perform” rating in a research note on Friday, September 13th. JPMorgan Chase & Co. lowered Moderna from a “neutral” rating to an “underweight” rating and reduced their price objective for the stock from $88.00 to $70.00 in a research report on Friday, September 13th. Deutsche Bank Aktiengesellschaft upgraded Moderna from a “sell” rating to a “hold” rating and dropped their target price for the company from $85.00 to $80.00 in a research report on Wednesday, August 7th. Finally, Leerink Partners reduced their price target on Moderna from $60.00 to $48.00 and set an “underperform” rating on the stock in a report on Tuesday. Two analysts have rated the stock with a sell rating, thirteen have given a hold rating and four have assigned a buy rating to the company. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, the stock currently has a consensus rating of “Hold” and an average target price of $100.44.

Moderna Stock Performance

Shares of MRNA opened at $65.69 on Friday. The company has a current ratio of 4.09, a quick ratio of 3.92 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.05. The firm’s fifty day simple moving average is $90.07 and its two-hundred day simple moving average is $110.76. Moderna has a 12 month low of $62.55 and a 12 month high of $170.47. The stock has a market capitalization of $25.18 billion, a P/E ratio of -4.19 and a beta of 1.68.

Moderna (NASDAQ:MRNA) last announced its earnings results on Thursday, August 1st. The company reported ($3.33) EPS for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of ($3.47) by $0.14. Moderna had a negative return on equity of 21.35% and a negative net margin of 116.18%. The company had revenue of $241.00 million for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $128.41 million. During the same quarter in the prior year, the company earned ($3.62) EPS. The firm’s revenue for the quarter was down 29.9% compared to the same quarter last year. As a group, analysts predict that Moderna will post -9.52 EPS for the current year.

About Moderna

Moderna, Inc, a biotechnology company, discovers, develops, and commercializes messenger RNA therapeutics and vaccines for the treatment of infectious diseases, immuno-oncology, rare diseases, autoimmune, and cardiovascular diseases in the United States, Europe, and internationally. Its respiratory vaccines include COVID-19, influenza, and respiratory syncytial virus, spikevax, and hMPV/PIV3 vaccines; latent vaccines comprise cytomegalovirus, epstein-barr virus, herpes simplex virus, varicella zoster virus, and human immunodeficiency virus vaccines; public health vaccines consists of Zika, Nipah, Mpox vaccines; and infectious diseases vaccines, such as lyme and norovirus vaccines.