Moderna (NASDAQ:MRNA) Downgraded by Jefferies Financial Group to Hold

Jefferies Financial Group lowered shares of Moderna (NASDAQ:MRNA) from a buy rating to a hold rating in a report published on Friday, Marketbeat reports. Jefferies Financial Group currently has $65.00 price objective on the stock, down from their previous price objective of $120.00.

MRNA has been the topic of several other research reports. The Goldman Sachs Group dropped their target price on shares of Moderna from $204.00 to $178.00 and set a buy rating on the stock in a research report on Friday, August 2nd. JPMorgan Chase & Co. cut shares of Moderna from a neutral rating to an underweight rating and dropped their target price for the stock from $88.00 to $70.00 in a research report on Friday. HSBC raised shares of Moderna from a reduce rating to a hold rating and set a $82.00 target price on the stock in a research report on Wednesday, August 28th. William Blair reissued a market perform rating on shares of Moderna in a research report on Thursday, June 27th. Finally, Barclays dropped their target price on shares of Moderna from $168.00 to $155.00 and set an overweight rating on the stock in a research report on Friday, August 2nd. One equities research analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, thirteen have assigned a hold rating and four have assigned a buy rating to the company. According to data from MarketBeat, Moderna currently has a consensus rating of Hold and a consensus target price of $108.53.

Moderna Price Performance

Shares of NASDAQ MRNA opened at $68.28 on Friday. Moderna has a fifty-two week low of $62.55 and a fifty-two week high of $170.47. The stock has a market cap of $26.17 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of -4.36 and a beta of 1.67. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.05, a quick ratio of 3.92 and a current ratio of 4.09. The firm’s 50-day simple moving average is $95.06 and its 200 day simple moving average is $111.68.

Moderna (NASDAQ:MRNA) last announced its quarterly earnings results on Thursday, August 1st. The company reported ($3.33) earnings per share for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of ($3.47) by $0.14. Moderna had a negative net margin of 116.18% and a negative return on equity of 21.35%. The business had revenue of $241.00 million for the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $128.41 million. During the same quarter last year, the firm 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, research analysts anticipate that Moderna will post -9.52 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Insider Activity at Moderna

In related news, President Stephen Hoge sold 15,000 shares of Moderna stock in a transaction that occurred on Monday, June 17th. The shares were sold at an average price of $138.16, for a total value of $2,072,400.00. Following the completion of the transaction, the president now directly owns 1,457,089 shares in the company, valued at approximately $201,311,416.24. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which can be accessed through this link. In other news, President Stephen Hoge sold 15,000 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction on Monday, June 17th. The shares were sold at an average price of $138.16, for a total transaction of $2,072,400.00. Following the completion of the transaction, the president now directly owns 1,457,089 shares in the company, valued at approximately $201,311,416.24. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which can be accessed through the SEC website. Also, CFO James M. Mock sold 1,321 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction on Wednesday, August 28th. The shares were sold at an average price of $79.39, for a total transaction of $104,874.19. Following the transaction, the chief financial officer now owns 8,600 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $682,754. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. In the last ninety days, insiders sold 108,158 shares of company stock worth $13,239,712. Corporate insiders own 15.70% of the company’s stock.

Institutional Inflows and Outflows

A number of hedge funds have recently made changes to their positions in MRNA. Principal Securities Inc. purchased a new position in shares of Moderna during the 4th quarter valued at $198,000. NBC Securities Inc. lifted its holdings in shares of Moderna by 20.2% during the 4th quarter. NBC Securities Inc. now owns 1,222 shares of the company’s stock worth $121,000 after acquiring an additional 205 shares during the last quarter. Vanguard Personalized Indexing Management LLC lifted its holdings in shares of Moderna by 12.7% during the 4th quarter. Vanguard Personalized Indexing Management LLC now owns 16,142 shares of the company’s stock worth $1,605,000 after acquiring an additional 1,820 shares during the last quarter. Quadrant Capital Group LLC lifted its holdings in shares of Moderna by 7.5% during the 4th quarter. Quadrant Capital Group LLC now owns 2,672 shares of the company’s stock worth $266,000 after acquiring an additional 187 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Atlantic Edge Private Wealth Management LLC bought a new stake in shares of Moderna during the 4th quarter worth $63,000. 75.33% of the stock is currently owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

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.