Pliant Therapeutics (NASDAQ:PLRX) Stock Rating Raised to Hold at Wall Street Zen

Wall Street Zen upgraded shares of Pliant Therapeutics (NASDAQ:PLRX) from a sell rating to a hold rating in a report issued on Saturday,Wall Street Zen reports.

Separately, Weiss Ratings reaffirmed a “sell (e+)” rating on shares of Pliant Therapeutics in a research note on Friday, July 17th. One equities research analyst has rated the stock with a Buy rating, one has assigned a Hold rating and two have issued a Sell rating to the stock. According to MarketBeat, Pliant Therapeutics currently has a consensus rating of “Reduce” and an average price target of $3.00.

Pliant Therapeutics Trading Down 5.3%

NASDAQ PLRX opened at $1.08 on Friday. The stock has a 50-day simple moving average of $1.11 and a 200 day simple moving average of $1.18. The company has a market capitalization of $66.87 million, a PE ratio of -0.72 and a beta of 1.27. Pliant Therapeutics has a 12 month low of $1.02 and a 12 month high of $1.95.

Pliant Therapeutics (NASDAQ:PLRX) last released its earnings results on Tuesday, August 11th. The company reported ($0.36) earnings per share for the quarter, missing the consensus estimate of ($0.34) by ($0.02). As a group, sell-side analysts predict that Pliant Therapeutics will post -1.42 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Institutional Trading of Pliant Therapeutics

Several hedge funds have recently added to or reduced their stakes in PLRX. ADAR1 Capital Management LLC acquired a new stake in shares of Pliant Therapeutics during the second quarter worth about $6,281,000. Monaco Asset Management SAM acquired a new stake in shares of Pliant Therapeutics in the 2nd quarter valued at about $2,210,000. BlackRock Inc. acquired a new stake in shares of Pliant Therapeutics in the 2nd quarter valued at about $1,312,000. Renaissance Technologies LLC lifted its holdings in shares of Pliant Therapeutics by 77.2% in the first quarter. Renaissance Technologies LLC now owns 1,852,842 shares of the company’s stock valued at $2,335,000 after purchasing an additional 807,024 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Connor Clark & Lunn Investment Management Ltd. bought a new stake in shares of Pliant Therapeutics in the second quarter valued at about $611,000. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 97.30% of the company’s stock.

Pliant Therapeutics Company Profile

Pliant Therapeutics, Inc is a clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company focused on discovering and developing therapies for fibrotic diseases. The company’s research centers on integrins, cell-surface proteins that regulate biological processes involved in tissue repair and fibrosis. Pliant seeks to develop medicines that address fibrosis in organs including the lungs and liver.

Pliant’s lead investigational product is bexotegrast, an oral small-molecule inhibitor designed to selectively target the alphaV beta6 and alphaV beta1 integrins.