Traders Purchase High Volume of Call Options on Joby Aviation (NYSE:JOBY)

Joby Aviation, Inc. (NYSE:JOBY) was the target of some unusual options trading on Tuesday. Stock traders bought 29,368 call options on the company. This represents an increase of approximately 74% compared to the average volume of 16,846 call options.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

Several equities research analysts recently commented on the stock. Wall Street Zen upgraded shares of Joby Aviation from a “sell” rating to a “hold” rating in a research note on Saturday. Morgan Stanley reaffirmed an “equal weight” rating and set a $7.00 price objective (down previously from $10.00) on shares of Joby Aviation in a report on Friday, April 11th. Cantor Fitzgerald reissued a “neutral” rating and issued a $9.00 target price on shares of Joby Aviation in a report on Monday, June 23rd. Canaccord Genuity Group reissued a “buy” rating and issued a $12.00 target price on shares of Joby Aviation in a research report on Wednesday, June 4th. Finally, HC Wainwright reaffirmed a “buy” rating and set a $13.00 price target (up previously from $9.00) on shares of Joby Aviation in a research report on Monday, June 9th. One analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, three have issued a hold rating and three have issued a buy rating to the company. According to data from MarketBeat, Joby Aviation has a consensus rating of “Hold” and an average target price of $9.33.

Insiders Place Their Bets

In other Joby Aviation news, insider Eric Allison sold 27,538 shares of the stock in a transaction that occurred on Monday, July 14th. The shares were sold at an average price of $11.97, for a total value of $329,629.86. Following the transaction, the insider directly owned 660,076 shares in the company, valued at $7,901,109.72. This represents a 4.00% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which is available at this hyperlink. Also, Director Motor Corp/ Toyota acquired 49,701,790 shares of Joby Aviation stock in a transaction dated Thursday, May 22nd. The shares were bought at an average price of $5.03 per share, with a total value of $250,000,003.70. Following the transaction, the director directly owned 122,573,621 shares in the company, valued at approximately $616,545,313.63. The trade was a 68.20% increase in their position. The disclosure for this purchase can be found here. In the last quarter, insiders have sold 2,046,702 shares of company stock worth $20,283,383. 32.40% of the stock is currently owned by company insiders.

Institutional Inflows and Outflows

A number of institutional investors have recently modified their holdings of JOBY. Toyota Motor Corp acquired a new stake in Joby Aviation in the fourth quarter valued at about $640,259,000. Vanguard Group Inc. raised its stake in shares of Joby Aviation by 15.8% during the 4th quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 46,760,562 shares of the company’s stock worth $380,163,000 after buying an additional 6,388,232 shares in the last quarter. Uber Technologies Inc acquired a new stake in shares of Joby Aviation in the 4th quarter valued at approximately $207,842,000. Geode Capital Management LLC lifted its holdings in shares of Joby Aviation by 8.7% in the 4th quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC now owns 10,208,358 shares of the company’s stock valued at $83,015,000 after buying an additional 817,638 shares during the period. Finally, Rheos Capital Works Inc. boosted its stake in shares of Joby Aviation by 89.4% in the first quarter. Rheos Capital Works Inc. now owns 4,555,000 shares of the company’s stock valued at $27,421,000 after buying an additional 2,150,000 shares in the last quarter. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 52.85% of the company’s stock.

Joby Aviation Stock Performance

Shares of NYSE:JOBY opened at $13.94 on Wednesday. Joby Aviation has a one year low of $4.66 and a one year high of $14.00. The stock has a market capitalization of $11.03 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of -16.59 and a beta of 2.47. The company has a 50-day simple moving average of $8.76 and a 200-day simple moving average of $7.68.

Joby Aviation (NYSE:JOBY) last issued its quarterly earnings results on Tuesday, May 6th. The company reported ($0.11) earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of ($0.18) by $0.07. Joby Aviation had a negative return on equity of 63.27% and a negative net margin of 447,083.78%. During the same period in the previous year, the firm posted ($0.14) EPS. As a group, research analysts forecast that Joby Aviation will post -0.69 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Joby Aviation Company Profile

Joby Aviation, Inc, a vertically integrated air mobility company, engages in building an electric vertical takeoff and landing aircraft optimized to deliver air transportation as a service. The company intends to build an aerial ridesharing service, as well as developing an application-based platform that will enable consumers to book rides.