Moderna’s (MRNA) Hold Rating Reaffirmed at Needham & Company LLC

Needham & Company LLC reiterated their hold rating on shares of Moderna (NASDAQ:MRNA) in a research report sent to investors on Thursday morning, Benzinga reports.

MRNA has been the subject of several other research reports. Royal Bank of Canada reaffirmed an outperform rating and set a $125.00 price target on shares of Moderna in a research note on Friday, February 23rd. JPMorgan Chase & Co. dropped their price target on shares of Moderna from $93.00 to $90.00 and set a neutral rating for the company in a research note on Friday, December 1st. Canaccord Genuity Group raised their price target on shares of Moderna from $82.00 to $91.00 and gave the company a hold rating in a research note on Friday, February 23rd. Canaccord Genuity Group started coverage on shares of Moderna in a research note on Wednesday, November 29th. They set a hold rating and a $82.00 price target for the company. Finally, Oppenheimer raised shares of Moderna from a market perform rating to an outperform rating and set a $142.00 price target for the company in a research note on Tuesday, January 2nd. Two research analysts have rated the stock with a sell rating, nine have given a hold rating and five have issued a buy rating to the company’s stock. According to data from MarketBeat.com, the stock has a consensus rating of Hold and an average price target of $129.82.

Moderna Trading Down 3.6 %

Shares of Moderna stock opened at $106.56 on Thursday. Moderna has a fifty-two week low of $62.55 and a fifty-two week high of $163.24. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.04, a quick ratio of 3.36 and a current ratio of 3.42. The company’s 50 day moving average price is $98.94 and its two-hundred day moving average price is $93.58.

Moderna (NASDAQ:MRNA) last issued its earnings results on Thursday, February 22nd. The company reported $0.55 earnings per share for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of ($0.78) by $1.33. Moderna had a negative net margin of 68.84% and a negative return on equity of 10.23%. The firm had revenue of $2.80 billion for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $2.53 billion. During the same quarter last year, the business posted $3.61 earnings per share. The company’s quarterly revenue was down 44.9% on a year-over-year basis. On average, equities analysts anticipate that Moderna will post -7.48 earnings per share for the current year.

Insiders Place Their Bets

In other Moderna news, President Stephen Hoge sold 15,000 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction on Tuesday, January 16th. The shares were sold at an average price of $103.90, for a total value of $1,558,500.00. Following the completion of the sale, the president now directly owns 1,516,063 shares in the company, valued at $157,518,945.70. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available at the SEC website. In other news, President Stephen Hoge sold 15,000 shares of Moderna stock in a transaction dated Tuesday, January 16th. The shares were sold at an average price of $103.90, for a total transaction of $1,558,500.00. Following the completion of the transaction, the president now directly owns 1,516,063 shares in the company, valued at $157,518,945.70. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which can be accessed through this link. Also, CFO James M. Mock sold 772 shares of Moderna stock in a transaction dated Monday, January 8th. The shares were sold at an average price of $109.75, for a total transaction of $84,727.00. Following the transaction, the chief financial officer now owns 3,632 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $398,612. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Over the last ninety days, insiders sold 50,021 shares of company stock worth $5,211,442. 15.70% of the stock is currently owned by company insiders.

Institutional Inflows and Outflows

A number of hedge funds have recently made changes to their positions in MRNA. Vanguard Group Inc. boosted its holdings in Moderna by 22.6% during the fourth quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 33,907,072 shares of the company’s stock worth $3,372,058,000 after purchasing an additional 6,248,623 shares during the last quarter. State Street Corp boosted its holdings in Moderna by 1.1% during the second quarter. State Street Corp now owns 14,227,227 shares of the company’s stock worth $1,728,608,000 after purchasing an additional 150,872 shares during the last quarter. Wellington Management Group LLP boosted its holdings in Moderna by 28.8% during the fourth quarter. Wellington Management Group LLP now owns 7,225,579 shares of the company’s stock worth $718,584,000 after purchasing an additional 1,614,460 shares during the last quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC boosted its holdings in Moderna by 1.3% during the first quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC now owns 6,244,957 shares of the company’s stock worth $957,063,000 after purchasing an additional 77,265 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Morgan Stanley boosted its holdings in Moderna by 19.1% during the fourth quarter. Morgan Stanley now owns 4,187,353 shares of the company’s stock worth $752,133,000 after purchasing an additional 670,284 shares during the last quarter. 75.33% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

Moderna Company Profile

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.