Moderna Sees Unusually Large Options Volume (NASDAQ:MRNA)

Moderna, Inc. (NASDAQ:MRNA) saw unusually large options trading on Thursday. Investors bought 121,397 call options on the company. This represents an increase of approximately 31% compared to the average daily volume of 92,367 call options.

Institutional Inflows and Outflows

Hedge funds and other institutional investors have recently made changes to their positions in the stock. Bank of New York Mellon Corp lifted its stake in Moderna by 1.8% during the first quarter. Bank of New York Mellon Corp now owns 1,918,248 shares of the company’s stock worth $54,382,000 after purchasing an additional 34,034 shares during the last quarter. Wealthfront Advisers LLC increased its holdings in shares of Moderna by 143.3% during the first quarter. Wealthfront Advisers LLC now owns 31,018 shares of the company’s stock worth $879,000 after buying an additional 18,268 shares in the last quarter. Jump Financial LLC increased its holdings in Moderna by 5,590.0% in the first quarter. Jump Financial LLC now owns 902,427 shares of the company’s stock valued at $25,584,000 after purchasing an additional 886,567 shares during the period. FORA Capital LLC increased its holdings in Moderna by 31.7% in the first quarter. FORA Capital LLC now owns 97,072 shares of the company’s stock valued at $2,752,000 after purchasing an additional 23,344 shares during the period. Finally, Charles Schwab Investment Management Inc. increased its holdings in Moderna by 12.2% in the first quarter. Charles Schwab Investment Management Inc. now owns 2,629,865 shares of the company’s stock valued at $74,557,000 after purchasing an additional 285,662 shares during the period. 75.33% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors.

Analyst Ratings Changes

MRNA has been the subject of several analyst reports. Wells Fargo & Company restated an “equal weight” rating on shares of Moderna in a research report on Sunday, July 13th. Weiss Ratings restated a “sell (e+)” rating on shares of Moderna in a research report on Wednesday, October 8th. Barclays cut their target price on Moderna from $40.00 to $31.00 and set an “equal weight” rating for the company in a research report on Monday, August 4th. Leerink Partners cut their target price on Moderna from $18.00 to $15.00 and set an “underperform” rating for the company in a research report on Friday, August 22nd. Finally, Cowen assumed coverage on Moderna in a research report on Sunday, July 13th. They set a “hold” rating for the company. One investment analyst has rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, three have given a Buy rating, twelve have assigned a Hold rating and five have issued a Sell rating to the company. Based on data from MarketBeat, the company presently has an average rating of “Hold” and a consensus target price of $36.86.

Moderna Price Performance

Shares of NASDAQ MRNA traded up $0.63 during midday trading on Thursday, hitting $24.19. The stock had a trading volume of 11,722,013 shares, compared to its average volume of 10,949,486. The company’s 50-day simple moving average is $25.80 and its 200 day simple moving average is $27.15. The firm has a market cap of $9.45 billion, a P/E ratio of -3.21 and a beta of 2.02. Moderna has a fifty-two week low of $23.15 and a fifty-two week high of $56.69.

Moderna (NASDAQ:MRNA) last released its earnings results on Thursday, November 6th. The company reported ($0.51) EPS for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of ($2.15) by $1.64. Moderna had a negative return on equity of 25.96% and a negative net margin of 94.31%.The company had revenue of $1.02 billion during the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $893.29 million. During the same period last year, the firm earned $0.03 EPS. The business’s revenue for the quarter was down 45.4% on a year-over-year basis. Moderna has set its FY 2025 guidance at EPS. Equities analysts expect that Moderna will post -9.61 EPS for the current fiscal year.

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.