Aprea Therapeutics, Inc. (NASDAQ:APRE) Short Interest Up 623.6% in January

Aprea Therapeutics, Inc. (NASDAQ:APRE) was the target of a large increase in short interest in January. As of January 30th, there was short interest totaling 260,110 shares, an increase of 623.6% from the January 15th total of 35,947 shares. Based on an average daily trading volume, of 11,506,003 shares, the days-to-cover ratio is currently 0.0 days. Currently, 4.3% of the shares of the stock are short sold. Currently, 4.3% of the shares of the stock are short sold. Based on an average daily trading volume, of 11,506,003 shares, the days-to-cover ratio is currently 0.0 days.

Insider Activity

In related news, Director Marc Duey acquired 21,459 shares of Aprea Therapeutics stock in a transaction dated Wednesday, December 10th. The shares were purchased at an average price of $1.17 per share, for a total transaction of $25,107.03. Following the completion of the transaction, the director directly owned 256,155 shares in the company, valued at approximately $299,701.35. This represents a 9.14% increase in their position. The transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available through the SEC website. 13.63% of the stock is currently owned by insiders.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

A number of analysts have issued reports on APRE shares. Zacks Research downgraded shares of Aprea Therapeutics from a “hold” rating to a “strong sell” rating in a report on Tuesday, January 13th. Weiss Ratings restated a “sell (e+)” rating on shares of Aprea Therapeutics in a research report on Wednesday, January 21st. Wedbush reduced their target price on Aprea Therapeutics from $11.00 to $7.00 and set an “outperform” rating on the stock in a report on Tuesday. Finally, HC Wainwright reiterated a “buy” rating and issued a $4.00 target price (down from $5.00) on shares of Aprea Therapeutics in a research report on Thursday, January 29th. Two research analysts have rated the stock with a Buy rating and two have assigned a Sell rating to the stock. According to data from MarketBeat, the company currently has a consensus rating of “Hold” and a consensus target price of $5.50.

Aprea Therapeutics Price Performance

NASDAQ:APRE opened at $0.61 on Thursday. The firm has a market capitalization of $4.29 million, a price-to-earnings ratio of -0.29 and a beta of 1.48. The business has a 50 day simple moving average of $0.86 and a 200-day simple moving average of $1.26. Aprea Therapeutics has a 1 year low of $0.55 and a 1 year high of $3.72.

Aprea Therapeutics (NASDAQ:APRE) last released its quarterly earnings results on Wednesday, November 12th. The company reported ($0.47) earnings per share for the quarter, missing the consensus estimate of ($0.11) by ($0.36). The company had revenue of $0.00 million for the quarter. Aprea Therapeutics had a negative net margin of 2,666.46% and a negative return on equity of 88.12%. As a group, analysts expect that Aprea Therapeutics will post -2.55 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

About Aprea Therapeutics

Aprea Therapeutics is a clinical‐stage biopharmaceutical company dedicated to developing targeted therapies that restore tumor suppressor function in cancers driven by TP53 mutations. The company’s lead investigational agent, eprenetapopt (APR-246), is designed to convert mutant p53 protein into a form that induces programmed cell death in malignant cells. Aprea’s research focuses on hematologic malignancies, including myelodysplastic syndromes (MDS) and acute myeloid leukemia (AML), as well as solid tumors harboring TP53 mutations.

Eprenetapopt has advanced through multiple clinical trials, including pivotal studies assessing its efficacy in combination with hypomethylating agents for patients with MDS.