Stock Traders Purchase Large Volume of Precigen Call Options (NASDAQ:PGEN)

Precigen, Inc. (NASDAQ:PGEN) saw some unusual options trading activity on Wednesday. Stock investors purchased 23,605 call options on the stock. This is an increase of approximately 417% compared to the typical volume of 4,570 call options.

Insider Activity

In other news, Director Jeffrey B. Kindler sold 185,000 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction on Wednesday, August 26th. The shares were sold at an average price of $7.44, for a total value of $1,376,400.00. Following the completion of the transaction, the director directly owned 17,100 shares in the company, valued at approximately $127,224. This represents a 91.54% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which can be accessed through this link. Also, COO Rutul R. Shah sold 15,342 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction on Tuesday, August 25th. The shares were sold at an average price of $7.50, for a total transaction of $115,065.00. Following the sale, the chief operating officer directly owned 468,865 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $3,516,487.50. The trade was a 3.17% 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. The sale was made to cover tax withholding obligations related to the vesting of equity awards. Insiders sold 991,271 shares of company stock worth $6,208,620 over the last three months. Insiders own 41.40% of the company’s stock.

Institutional Inflows and Outflows

Several hedge funds have recently made changes to their positions in the company. Patient Capital Management LLC bought a new stake in shares of Precigen during the 2nd quarter valued at about $108,511,000. BlackRock Inc. bought a new position in Precigen in the second quarter worth about $97,737,000. Bank of America Corp DE acquired a new position in Precigen in the second quarter valued at approximately $10,536,000. Occam Crest Management LP boosted its stake in Precigen by 29.6% in the fourth quarter. Occam Crest Management LP now owns 3,501,739 shares of the biotechnology company’s stock valued at $14,637,000 after acquiring an additional 799,339 shares during the period. Finally, Bank of New York Mellon Corp bought a new position in shares of Precigen during the second quarter valued at approximately $2,705,000. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 33.51% of the company’s stock.

Analyst Ratings Changes

Several brokerages have recently weighed in on PGEN. Wall Street Zen upgraded Precigen from a “hold” rating to a “strong-buy” rating in a research note on Saturday, August 8th. Zacks Research raised Precigen from a “hold” rating to a “strong-buy” rating in a report on Wednesday, August 5th. HC Wainwright raised their price objective on Precigen from $14.00 to $18.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a research note on Wednesday, August 5th. Finally, Weiss Ratings restated a “sell (d-)” rating on shares of Precigen in a report on Friday, July 17th. One investment analyst has rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, three have given a Buy rating and one has assigned a Sell rating to the company. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, the stock has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus price target of $14.50.

Precigen Stock Up 2.2%

PGEN stock traded up $0.15 during mid-day trading on Wednesday, hitting $7.16. 1,717,058 shares of the company were exchanged, compared to its average volume of 4,559,123. The firm has a fifty day simple moving average of $6.38 and a 200 day simple moving average of $4.95. The company has a market capitalization of $2.55 billion, a PE ratio of -6.88 and a beta of 1.02. Precigen has a twelve month low of $2.99 and a twelve month high of $7.72. The company has a current ratio of 4.58, a quick ratio of 3.89 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 2.15.

Precigen (NASDAQ:PGEN) last posted its quarterly earnings results on Tuesday, August 4th. The biotechnology company reported $0.05 EPS for the quarter, topping analysts’ consensus estimates of ($0.01) by $0.06. The business had revenue of $54.98 million during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $27.98 million. Precigen had a positive return on equity of 423.75% and a negative net margin of 183.98%.Precigen’s revenue for the quarter was up 6322.7% compared to the same quarter last year. On average, research analysts forecast that Precigen will post 0.25 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Precigen Company Profile

Precigen, Inc (NASDAQ:PGEN) is a biotechnology company focused on developing gene and cell therapies for cancer and other serious diseases. The company uses its synthetic biology platforms to engineer targeted medicines designed to improve treatment effectiveness, durability and safety.

Precigen’s technology portfolio includes its UltraCAR-T platform for developing next-generation CAR-T cell therapies, the AdenoVerse platform for gene delivery and immunotherapy applications, and ActoBiotics technology for the localized delivery of therapeutic proteins.