Valneva (NASDAQ:VALN) Shares Gap Up – Should You Buy?

Valneva SE (NASDAQ:VALN) shares gapped up prior to trading on Thursday . The stock had previously closed at $6.73, but opened at $7.06. Valneva shares last traded at $7.15, with a volume of 6,867 shares trading hands.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

Separately, HC Wainwright reaffirmed a “buy” rating and set a $17.00 price objective on shares of Valneva in a report on Friday, February 28th.

Valneva Stock Performance

The company has a market cap of $585.89 million, a PE ratio of -55.46 and a beta of 1.93. The stock has a 50 day simple moving average of $6.24 and a two-hundred day simple moving average of $5.60. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.70, a current ratio of 2.78 and a quick ratio of 2.25.

Valneva (NASDAQ:VALN) last released its quarterly earnings results on Wednesday, March 19th. The company reported ($0.54) EPS for the quarter, missing the consensus estimate of ($0.22) by ($0.32). Valneva had a negative net margin of 4.35% and a negative return on equity of 3.93%. Equities analysts predict that Valneva SE will post 0.13 EPS for the current year.

Institutional Investors Weigh In On Valneva

An institutional investor recently raised its position in Valneva stock. Wells Fargo & Company MN grew its position in shares of Valneva SE (NASDAQ:VALN) by 14.3% in the fourth quarter, according to the company in its most recent 13F filing with the SEC. The fund owned 246,766 shares of the company’s stock after buying an additional 30,859 shares during the quarter. Wells Fargo & Company MN owned 0.30% of Valneva worth $1,079,000 as of its most recent filing with the SEC. 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.