Valneva (NASDAQ:VALN) Stock Price Down 4.9% – Should You Sell?

Shares of Valneva SE Sponsored ADR (NASDAQ:VALN) dropped 4.9% during trading on Friday . The stock traded as low as $10.64 and last traded at $10.60. Approximately 2,233 shares changed hands during mid-day trading, a decline of 97% from the average daily volume of 70,987 shares. The stock had previously closed at $11.14.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

VALN has been the topic of several research analyst reports. Jefferies Financial Group set a $14.00 target price on shares of Valneva and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a report on Monday, August 25th. Guggenheim lowered their target price on shares of Valneva from $14.00 to $13.00 and set a “buy” rating on the stock in a report on Monday, September 8th. HC Wainwright reissued a “buy” rating and issued a $18.00 target price on shares of Valneva in a report on Monday, August 25th. Wall Street Zen raised shares of Valneva to a “hold” rating in a report on Saturday, September 6th. Finally, Weiss Ratings reaffirmed a “sell (d-)” rating on shares of Valneva in a research note on Wednesday. Three investment analysts have rated the stock with a Buy rating and one has assigned a Sell rating to the company. According to MarketBeat, the stock has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $15.00.

Valneva Price Performance

The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.66, a current ratio of 2.27 and a quick ratio of 1.77. The firm has a market cap of $891.09 million, a P/E ratio of -10.58 and a beta of 1.86. The stock’s 50-day simple moving average is $9.86 and its two-hundred day simple moving average is $7.61.

Valneva (NASDAQ:VALN) last posted its quarterly earnings data on Tuesday, August 12th. The company reported ($0.16) earnings per share for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of ($0.27) by $0.11. Valneva had a negative net margin of 33.87% and a negative return on equity of 34.78%. The business had revenue of $54.84 million for the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $46.28 million. Equities research analysts forecast that Valneva SE Sponsored ADR will post 0.13 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Institutional Inflows and Outflows

Hedge funds have recently bought and sold shares of the company. Marex Group plc bought a new position in Valneva during the second quarter valued at $64,000. GAMMA Investing LLC purchased a new position in Valneva in the 1st quarter worth about $94,000. Finally, Frazier Life Sciences Management L.P. purchased a new position in Valneva in the 2nd quarter worth about $8,240,000. Institutional investors own 11.39% of the company’s stock.

About Valneva

Valneva SE, a specialty vaccine company, develops, manufactures, and commercializes prophylactic vaccines for infectious diseases with unmet needs. It offers IXIARO, an inactivated Vero cell culture-derived Japanese encephalitis vaccine indicated for active immunization against Japanese encephalitis; DUKORAL, an oral vaccine for the prevention of diarrhea caused by Vibrio cholera and/or heat-labile toxin producing enterotoxigenic Escherichia coli bacterium; IXCHIQ, a single-dose, live-attenuated vaccine for the prevention of disease caused by chikungunya virus; and VLA2001, an inactivated whole-virus COVID-19 vaccine.