Absci (NASDAQ:ABSI) Stock Price Up 10.6% Following Analyst Upgrade

Absci Corporation (NASDAQ:ABSI)’s share price traded up 10.6% on Thursday after BTIG Research upgraded the stock to a strong-buy rating. The stock traded as high as $5.65 and last traded at $5.7050. 1,910,863 shares were traded during mid-day trading, a decline of 52% from the average session volume of 4,017,772 shares. The stock had previously closed at $5.16.

Several other equities analysts have also commented on the company. Needham & Company LLC reaffirmed a “buy” rating and issued a $7.00 price target on shares of Absci in a research note on Wednesday, March 25th. Morgan Stanley set a $4.10 price objective on Absci in a research report on Thursday, May 14th. Truist Financial upped their target price on shares of Absci from $9.00 to $11.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a research report on Friday, May 8th. Finally, Weiss Ratings reaffirmed a “sell (d-)” rating on shares of Absci in a research note on Monday, April 20th. One research analyst has rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, four have assigned a Buy rating, one has issued a Hold rating and one has given a Sell rating to the company’s stock. According to MarketBeat, Absci presently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $7.82.

Insider Buying and Selling

In other news, insider Andreas Busch purchased 100,000 shares of the stock in a transaction dated Thursday, March 12th. The stock was acquired at an average cost of $2.29 per share, for a total transaction of $229,000.00. Following the completion of the transaction, the insider directly owned 421,446 shares in the company, valued at approximately $965,111.34. This represents a 31.11% increase in their position. The purchase was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which is available at this link. 10.49% of the stock is owned by company insiders.

Hedge Funds Weigh In On Absci

Several hedge funds have recently bought and sold shares of ABSI. Essential Partners LLC boosted its holdings in Absci by 113,850.0% during the 1st quarter. Essential Partners LLC now owns 9,116 shares of the company’s stock valued at $27,000 after acquiring an additional 9,108 shares during the period. Bank of America Corp DE increased its stake in Absci by 55.2% during the first quarter. Bank of America Corp DE now owns 487,193 shares of the company’s stock worth $1,462,000 after purchasing an additional 173,361 shares during the period. Royal Bank of Canada lifted its position in shares of Absci by 29.7% during the first quarter. Royal Bank of Canada now owns 175,085 shares of the company’s stock worth $525,000 after purchasing an additional 40,111 shares in the last quarter. Siren L.L.C. acquired a new stake in shares of Absci during the first quarter worth about $5,400,000. Finally, Principal Financial Group Inc. purchased a new position in shares of Absci in the first quarter valued at approximately $31,000. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 52.05% of the company’s stock.

Absci Price Performance

The firm has a market cap of $1.05 billion, a PE ratio of -8.13 and a beta of 2.36. The company’s 50 day moving average price is $4.18 and its 200 day moving average price is $3.45.

Absci (NASDAQ:ABSI) last released its earnings results on Thursday, May 7th. The company reported ($0.19) earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, topping analysts’ consensus estimates of ($0.20) by $0.01. Absci had a negative net margin of 6,450.76% and a negative return on equity of 66.32%. The company had revenue of $0.22 million for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $1.39 million. Sell-side analysts expect that Absci Corporation will post -0.77 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Absci Company Profile

Absci Corporation (NASDAQ: ABSI) is a biotechnology company that applies machine learning, synthetic biology and automation to accelerate the discovery and development of protein-based therapeutics. The company’s Integrated Drug Creation® (IDC®) platform is designed to identify and produce novel antibody and enzyme candidates at speeds and scales that traditional biopharma discovery methods cannot match. Absci works with pharmaceutical and biotechnology partners to generate, screen and optimize protein molecules for a wide range of therapeutic applications.

The core of Absci’s offering is its end-to-end discovery engine, which combines proprietary algorithms, high-throughput laboratory automation and a deep learning framework.