Blair William & Co. IL Buys 44,915 Shares of Viking Therapeutics, Inc. (NASDAQ:VKTX)

Blair William & Co. IL increased its stake in Viking Therapeutics, Inc. (NASDAQ:VKTX) by 19.8% during the fourth quarter, according to its most recent Form 13F filing with the SEC. The firm owned 271,869 shares of the biotechnology company’s stock after purchasing an additional 44,915 shares during the period. Blair William & Co. IL owned approximately 0.24% of Viking Therapeutics worth $10,940,000 as of its most recent filing with the SEC.

Other hedge funds and other institutional investors have also bought and sold shares of the company. NEOS Investment Management LLC increased its holdings in Viking Therapeutics by 9.2% in the 4th quarter. NEOS Investment Management LLC now owns 20,215 shares of the biotechnology company’s stock valued at $813,000 after buying an additional 1,707 shares during the period. Mitsubishi UFJ Asset Management Co. Ltd. bought a new position in Viking Therapeutics in the fourth quarter valued at approximately $429,000. EFG Asset Management North America Corp. increased its stake in Viking Therapeutics by 130.8% in the fourth quarter. EFG Asset Management North America Corp. now owns 71,773 shares of the biotechnology company’s stock valued at $2,887,000 after acquiring an additional 40,674 shares during the last quarter. LPL Financial LLC lifted its stake in Viking Therapeutics by 18.2% during the fourth quarter. LPL Financial LLC now owns 96,702 shares of the biotechnology company’s stock worth $3,891,000 after purchasing an additional 14,873 shares during the last quarter. Finally, KLP Kapitalforvaltning AS bought a new stake in Viking Therapeutics during the fourth quarter worth $833,000. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 76.03% of the company’s stock.

Insider Activity

In other Viking Therapeutics news, CFO Greg Zante sold 50,309 shares of the stock in a transaction that occurred on Monday, January 6th. The stock was sold at an average price of $42.75, for a total transaction of $2,150,709.75. Following the transaction, the chief financial officer now directly owns 165,259 shares in the company, valued at approximately $7,064,822.25. This represents a 23.34 % decrease in their position. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is accessible through this link. Also, CEO Brian Lian sold 194,490 shares of Viking Therapeutics stock in a transaction on Monday, January 6th. The shares were sold at an average price of $42.75, for a total transaction of $8,314,447.50. Following the completion of the sale, the chief executive officer now owns 2,366,570 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $101,170,867.50. This represents a 7.59 % decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. In the last three months, insiders have sold 299,014 shares of company stock valued at $12,782,849. 4.70% of the stock is currently owned by insiders.

Viking Therapeutics Stock Down 1.8 %

Shares of NASDAQ:VKTX opened at $25.65 on Friday. The business has a fifty day simple moving average of $30.29 and a 200 day simple moving average of $46.60. Viking Therapeutics, Inc. has a 12-month low of $24.41 and a 12-month high of $82.00. The firm has a market cap of $2.88 billion, a P/E ratio of -25.65 and a beta of 0.90.

Viking Therapeutics (NASDAQ:VKTX) last posted its quarterly earnings data on Wednesday, February 5th. The biotechnology company reported ($0.32) EPS for the quarter, missing analysts’ consensus estimates of ($0.27) by ($0.05). During the same period in the prior year, the business earned ($0.25) earnings per share. As a group, equities research analysts expect that Viking Therapeutics, Inc. will post -1.56 EPS for the current year.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

A number of research firms have recently commented on VKTX. Scotiabank assumed coverage on Viking Therapeutics in a report on Thursday, February 13th. They set a “sector outperform” rating and a $102.00 price target for the company. Piper Sandler lowered their target price on Viking Therapeutics from $74.00 to $71.00 and set an “overweight” rating for the company in a research note on Thursday, February 6th. Maxim Group reduced their price target on shares of Viking Therapeutics from $120.00 to $70.00 and set a “buy” rating on the stock in a research note on Friday, February 7th. Raymond James upped their price objective on shares of Viking Therapeutics from $122.00 to $125.00 and gave the stock a “strong-buy” rating in a research report on Thursday, February 6th. Finally, HC Wainwright restated a “buy” rating and issued a $102.00 target price on shares of Viking Therapeutics in a research report on Wednesday. One equities research analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, one has given a hold rating, ten have given a buy rating and one has issued a strong buy rating to the company. According to MarketBeat, Viking Therapeutics currently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus target price of $95.18.

Viking Therapeutics Profile

Viking Therapeutics, Inc, a clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company, focuses on the development of novel therapies for metabolic and endocrine disorders. The company's lead drug candidate is VK2809, an orally available tissue and receptor-subtype selective agonist of the thyroid hormone receptor beta (TRß), which is in Phase IIb clinical trials to treat patients with biopsy-confirmed non-alcoholic steatohepatitis, as well as NAFLD.