Brokerages Set Prothena Co. plc (NASDAQ:PRTA) Price Target at $68.14

Shares of Prothena Co. plc (NASDAQ:PRTA) have been assigned an average recommendation of “Moderate Buy” from the seven ratings firms that are currently covering the firm, Marketbeat Ratings reports. Two research analysts have rated the stock with a hold recommendation and five have given a buy recommendation to the company. The average 12 month target price among analysts that have issued a report on the stock in the last year is $68.14.

PRTA has been the subject of a number of research reports. Oppenheimer decreased their target price on Prothena from $98.00 to $80.00 and set an “outperform” rating for the company in a research note on Tuesday, February 20th. JMP Securities raised their price objective on shares of Prothena from $81.00 to $85.00 and gave the stock a “market outperform” rating in a research note on Friday, February 16th. Cantor Fitzgerald reissued an “overweight” rating on shares of Prothena in a research report on Wednesday, April 10th. StockNews.com lowered shares of Prothena from a “hold” rating to a “sell” rating in a research note on Monday, February 19th. Finally, Bank of America reaffirmed a “neutral” rating and issued a $38.00 price target (down from $68.00) on shares of Prothena in a research note on Tuesday, January 30th.

Institutional Investors Weigh In On Prothena

Institutional investors and hedge funds have recently added to or reduced their stakes in the stock. China Universal Asset Management Co. Ltd. boosted its stake in Prothena by 99.0% during the 3rd quarter. China Universal Asset Management Co. Ltd. now owns 1,375 shares of the biotechnology company’s stock valued at $66,000 after purchasing an additional 684 shares during the period. Headlands Technologies LLC bought a new position in shares of Prothena during the 3rd quarter worth about $74,000. PNC Financial Services Group Inc. lifted its stake in Prothena by 265.9% during the fourth quarter. PNC Financial Services Group Inc. now owns 1,544 shares of the biotechnology company’s stock worth $56,000 after purchasing an additional 1,122 shares during the period. Allspring Global Investments Holdings LLC lifted its position in shares of Prothena by 58.3% during the 3rd quarter. Allspring Global Investments Holdings LLC now owns 3,096 shares of the biotechnology company’s stock worth $149,000 after buying an additional 1,140 shares during the period. Finally, ADAR1 Capital Management LLC acquired a new stake in Prothena in the 4th quarter valued at $222,000. 97.08% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

Prothena Trading Up 1.5 %

PRTA stock opened at $20.87 on Friday. The firm has a 50 day simple moving average of $25.22 and a 200-day simple moving average of $31.85. The company has a market capitalization of $1.12 billion, a P/E ratio of -7.45 and a beta of 0.21. Prothena has a twelve month low of $19.65 and a twelve month high of $79.65.

Prothena (NASDAQ:PRTA) last issued its quarterly earnings results on Thursday, February 15th. The biotechnology company reported ($1.26) earnings per share for the quarter, missing analysts’ consensus estimates of ($1.23) by ($0.03). Prothena had a negative net margin of 160.91% and a negative return on equity of 24.84%. The firm had revenue of $0.32 million during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $2.15 million. During the same quarter last year, the firm posted $0.12 earnings per share. Prothena’s revenue was down 99.4% compared to the same quarter last year. On average, research analysts predict that Prothena will post -4.88 EPS for the current year.

About Prothena

Prothena Corporation plc, a late-stage clinical biotechnology company, focuses on discovery and development of novel therapies to treat diseases caused by protein dysregulation in the United States. The company is involved in developing birtamimab, an investigational humanized antibody that is in Phase III clinical trial for the treatment of AL amyloidosis; Prasinezumab, a humanized monoclonal antibody, for the treatment of Parkinson's disease and other related synucleinopathies which is in Phase IIb clinical trial; NNC6019 that is in Phase lI clinical trial for the treatment of ATTR amyloidosis; and BMS-986446 and PRX012, which is in Phase I clinical trial for the treatment of Alzheimer's disease.