DURECT (NASDAQ:DRRX) Receives “Neutral” Rating from HC Wainwright

DURECT (NASDAQ:DRRX)‘s stock had its “neutral” rating reaffirmed by stock analysts at HC Wainwright in a research report issued to clients and investors on Thursday,Benzinga reports.

Separately, StockNews.com began coverage on DURECT in a research report on Thursday. They issued a “sell” rating on the stock.

DURECT Stock Performance

DURECT stock opened at $0.80 on Thursday. DURECT has a one year low of $0.70 and a one year high of $1.88. The company has a 50-day simple moving average of $0.80 and a 200-day simple moving average of $1.00. The firm has a market capitalization of $24.83 million, a P/E ratio of -1.31 and a beta of 0.91.

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

Institutional Trading of DURECT

A number of hedge funds and other institutional investors have recently made changes to their positions in DRRX. Richmond Brothers Inc. increased its stake 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 valued at $961,000 after acquiring an additional 138,920 shares during the period. Jane Street Group LLC lifted its position in DURECT by 266.0% in the fourth quarter. Jane Street Group LLC now owns 39,196 shares of the specialty pharmaceutical company’s stock worth $29,000 after purchasing an additional 28,486 shares during the period. Finally, Geode Capital Management LLC boosted its stake in DURECT by 4.8% during the 3rd quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC now owns 319,905 shares of the specialty pharmaceutical company’s stock valued at $429,000 after purchasing an additional 14,658 shares in the last quarter. 28.03% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors.

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.