Vaxcyte, Inc. (NASDAQ:PCVX) Receives $94.50 Consensus Target Price from Analysts

Vaxcyte, Inc. (NASDAQ:PCVX) has been given a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” by the eleven ratings firms that are covering the company, MarketBeat.com reports. One analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, one has given a hold rating, eight have given a buy rating and one has assigned a strong buy rating to the company. The average 1 year price target among brokers that have covered the stock in the last year is $94.50.

PCVX has been the subject of a number of research analyst reports. BTIG Research raised their target price on Vaxcyte from $85.00 to $89.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a report on Wednesday, February 25th. Jefferies Financial Group reiterated a “buy” rating on shares of Vaxcyte in a research note on Tuesday. Leerink Partners set a $77.00 price target on shares of Vaxcyte and gave the stock an “outperform” rating in a research report on Wednesday, November 19th. Weiss Ratings reissued a “sell (d-)” rating on shares of Vaxcyte in a research note on Friday, January 9th. Finally, Guggenheim reaffirmed a “buy” rating and set a $116.00 target price on shares of Vaxcyte in a research note on Monday, February 2nd.

Insiders Place Their Bets

In other Vaxcyte news, COO Jim Wassil sold 7,395 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction on Tuesday, March 10th. The shares were sold at an average price of $58.88, for a total value of $435,417.60. Following the completion of the transaction, the chief operating officer owned 166,818 shares in the company, valued at $9,822,243.84. The trade was a 4.24% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which is available at the SEC website. Also, insider Harpreet S. Dhaliwal sold 9,743 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction on Wednesday, December 31st. The stock was sold at an average price of $46.69, for a total value of $454,900.67. Following the sale, the insider directly owned 23,928 shares in the company, valued at $1,117,198.32. This represents a 28.94% decrease in their position. The SEC filing for this sale provides additional information. Insiders sold a total of 31,261 shares of company stock worth $1,593,767 over the last 90 days. Corporate insiders own 3.10% of the company’s stock.

Institutional Investors Weigh In On Vaxcyte

Several large investors have recently bought and sold shares of the stock. Janus Henderson Group PLC grew its position in shares of Vaxcyte by 2.2% during the fourth quarter. Janus Henderson Group PLC now owns 13,387,188 shares of the company’s stock worth $617,731,000 after buying an additional 282,985 shares in the last quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. raised its holdings in Vaxcyte by 2.7% in the third quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 12,320,453 shares of the company’s stock valued at $443,783,000 after acquiring an additional 323,368 shares in the last quarter. T. Rowe Price Investment Management Inc. raised its holdings in Vaxcyte by 35.9% in the fourth quarter. T. Rowe Price Investment Management Inc. now owns 11,296,333 shares of the company’s stock valued at $521,213,000 after acquiring an additional 2,981,038 shares in the last quarter. Wellington Management Group LLP lifted its stake in Vaxcyte by 18.5% in the fourth quarter. Wellington Management Group LLP now owns 5,966,310 shares of the company’s stock worth $275,286,000 after acquiring an additional 933,539 shares during the last quarter. Finally, State Street Corp lifted its stake in Vaxcyte by 4.1% in the fourth quarter. State Street Corp now owns 4,980,005 shares of the company’s stock worth $229,777,000 after acquiring an additional 194,116 shares during the last quarter. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 96.78% of the company’s stock.

Vaxcyte Stock Down 1.2%

NASDAQ:PCVX opened at $57.53 on Friday. The stock’s fifty day moving average is $53.72 and its two-hundred day moving average is $45.55. Vaxcyte has a 52 week low of $27.66 and a 52 week high of $76.61. The stock has a market capitalization of $8.28 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of -10.24 and a beta of 1.31.

Vaxcyte (NASDAQ:PCVX) last issued its quarterly earnings data on Tuesday, February 24th. The company reported ($1.80) earnings per share for the quarter, missing analysts’ consensus estimates of ($1.46) by ($0.34). During the same quarter last year, the business earned ($1.12) earnings per share. On average, sell-side analysts expect that Vaxcyte will post -4.21 EPS for the current fiscal year.

About Vaxcyte

Vaxcyte, Inc (NASDAQ: PCVX) is a clinical-stage biotechnology company focused on developing a new generation of preventive vaccines aimed at combating serious bacterial diseases. Headquartered in San Carlos, California, Vaxcyte leverages proprietary conjugation technologies to design and manufacture multivalent vaccines targeting pathogens for which there remain significant unmet medical needs. The company’s platform is intended to streamline the production of conjugate vaccines by improving antigen presentation and broadening strain coverage compared with conventional approaches.

Vaxcyte’s lead candidate, VAX-24, is a 24-valent pneumococcal conjugate vaccine designed to protect against 24 serotypes of Streptococcus pneumoniae.