Valneva (NASDAQ:VALN) Shares Gap Down Following Analyst Downgrade

Valneva SE (NASDAQ:VALN) gapped down before the market opened on Thursday after Guggenheim lowered their price target on the stock from $15.00 to $14.00. The stock had previously closed at $6.59, but opened at $6.27. Guggenheim currently has a buy rating on the stock. Valneva shares last traded at $6.28, with a volume of 1,122 shares changing hands.

Separately, HC Wainwright reaffirmed a “buy” rating and issued a $17.00 target price on shares of Valneva in a report on Tuesday, April 15th.

Hedge Funds Weigh In On Valneva

Hedge funds have recently modified their holdings of the company. GAMMA Investing LLC bought a new position in Valneva in the 1st quarter worth $94,000. ABC Arbitrage SA purchased a new position in shares of Valneva in the fourth quarter valued at about $84,000. Finally, Wells Fargo & Company MN boosted its stake in shares of Valneva by 14.3% in the fourth quarter. Wells Fargo & Company MN now owns 246,766 shares of the company’s stock worth $1,079,000 after acquiring an additional 30,859 shares during the period. 11.39% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors.

Valneva Price Performance

The firm has a 50-day moving average of $6.76 and a 200-day moving average of $5.74. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.70, a current ratio of 2.78 and a quick ratio of 2.25. The stock has a market cap of $527.41 million, a PE ratio of -48.51 and a beta of 1.85.

Valneva (NASDAQ:VALN) last announced its quarterly earnings data on Wednesday, May 7th. The company reported ($0.13) earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of ($0.40) by $0.27. Valneva had a negative net margin of 4.35% and a negative return on equity of 3.93%. The business had revenue of $51.79 million during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $41.80 million. Research analysts predict that Valneva SE will post 0.13 EPS for the current year.

About Valneva

Valneva SE, a specialty vaccine company, develops, manufactures, and commercializes prophylactic vaccines for infectious diseases with unmet needs. It offers IXIARO, an inactivated Vero cell culture-derived Japanese encephalitis vaccine indicated for active immunization against Japanese encephalitis; DUKORAL, an oral vaccine for the prevention of diarrhea caused by Vibrio cholera and/or heat-labile toxin producing enterotoxigenic Escherichia coli bacterium; IXCHIQ, a single-dose, live-attenuated vaccine for the prevention of disease caused by chikungunya virus; and VLA2001, an inactivated whole-virus COVID-19 vaccine.