Maplight Therapeutics (NASDAQ:MPLT) Shares Up 7.8% – Should You Buy?

Maplight Therapeutics, Inc. (NASDAQ:MPLT)’s stock price traded up 7.8% during mid-day trading on Tuesday . The company traded as high as $11.96 and last traded at $12.2430. Approximately 185,395 shares were traded during trading, a decline of 60% from the average session volume of 459,359 shares. The stock had previously closed at $11.36.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

A number of brokerages have recently weighed in on MPLT. UBS Group lowered Maplight Therapeutics from a “buy” rating to a “neutral” rating and cut their price objective for the stock from $52.00 to $13.00 in a research report on Monday, August 10th. Needham & Company LLC upped their target price on Maplight Therapeutics from $42.00 to $45.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a report on Friday, July 10th. Weiss Ratings reaffirmed a “sell (d-)” rating on shares of Maplight Therapeutics in a research note on Monday, July 13th. Lifesci Capital upgraded shares of Maplight Therapeutics to a “strong-buy” rating in a report on Thursday, May 14th. Finally, Morgan Stanley reissued an “equal weight” rating and set a $21.00 price objective (down from $34.00) on shares of Maplight Therapeutics in a research report on Tuesday, July 28th. Four investment analysts have rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, nine have issued a Buy rating, three have given a Hold rating and one has given a Sell rating to the company’s stock. According to MarketBeat, Maplight Therapeutics currently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus price target of $29.67.

Maplight Therapeutics Stock Up 2.6%

The company’s fifty day simple moving average is $24.62 and its 200 day simple moving average is $24.20. The firm has a market capitalization of $596.45 million and a PE ratio of -0.30.

Maplight Therapeutics (NASDAQ:MPLT) last posted its earnings results on Thursday, August 13th. The company reported ($1.32) earnings per share for the quarter, topping analysts’ consensus estimates of ($1.40) by $0.08. Equities research analysts forecast that Maplight Therapeutics, Inc. will post -5.12 EPS for the current year.

Insider Activity at Maplight Therapeutics

In other news, Director Troy Cox purchased 15,620 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Tuesday, July 28th. The shares were bought at an average cost of $9.52 per share, for a total transaction of $148,702.40. Following the completion of the transaction, the director directly owned 15,620 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $148,702.40. This trade represents a ∞ increase in their position. The acquisition was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which can be accessed through the SEC website. Also, insider James Woodruff Lillie sold 22,082 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction on Monday, August 3rd. The stock was sold at an average price of $12.54, for a total value of $276,908.28. Following the completion of the sale, the insider directly owned 202,380 shares in the company, valued at approximately $2,537,845.20. The trade was a 9.84% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale is available in the SEC filing. The transaction was executed under a pre-arranged Rule 10b5-1 trading plan. Insiders own 3.80% of the company’s stock.

Institutional Inflows and Outflows

Several institutional investors have recently modified their holdings of the business. Fcpm Iii Services B.V. purchased a new position in Maplight Therapeutics during the 4th quarter valued at about $56,672,000. T. Rowe Price Investment Management Inc. purchased a new stake in Maplight Therapeutics in the fourth quarter worth about $49,154,000. Goldman Sachs Group Inc. bought a new position in shares of Maplight Therapeutics during the fourth quarter valued at approximately $34,026,000. BlackRock Inc. purchased a new position in shares of Maplight Therapeutics during the second quarter valued at approximately $36,741,000. Finally, Nan Fung Group Holdings Ltd purchased a new position in shares of Maplight Therapeutics during the fourth quarter valued at approximately $17,060,000.

Maplight Therapeutics Company Profile

We are a clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company focused on improving the lives of patients suffering from debilitating central nervous system, or CNS, disorders. We were founded by globally recognized leaders in psychiatry and neuroscience research to address the lack of circuit-specific pharmacotherapies available for patients. Our discovery platform holds the potential to fill this void by identifying neural circuits causally linked to disease and targeting those circuits for therapeutic modulation.