Moderna Sees Unusually Large Options Volume (NASDAQ:MRNA)

Moderna, Inc. (NASDAQ:MRNA) saw unusually large options trading activity on Thursday. Stock traders purchased 121,397 call options on the company. This is an increase of approximately 31% compared to the average volume of 92,367 call options.

Institutional Inflows and Outflows

Several institutional investors have recently added to or reduced their stakes in the business. Vanguard Group Inc. grew its stake in shares of Moderna by 3.2% in the 2nd quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 41,708,705 shares of the company’s stock worth $1,150,743,000 after buying an additional 1,312,192 shares in the last quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC lifted its holdings in shares of Moderna by 19.1% in the 2nd quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC now owns 8,877,280 shares of the company’s stock worth $244,458,000 after acquiring an additional 1,420,690 shares during the last quarter. Theleme Partners LLP lifted its holdings in shares of Moderna by 8.6% in the 2nd quarter. Theleme Partners LLP now owns 7,868,810 shares of the company’s stock worth $217,100,000 after acquiring an additional 626,420 shares during the last quarter. Invesco Ltd. lifted its holdings in shares of Moderna by 20.7% in the 2nd quarter. Invesco Ltd. now owns 7,101,032 shares of the company’s stock worth $195,917,000 after acquiring an additional 1,217,408 shares during the last quarter. Finally, UBS AM A Distinct Business Unit of UBS Asset Management Americas LLC lifted its holdings in shares of Moderna by 0.3% in the 1st quarter. UBS AM A Distinct Business Unit of UBS Asset Management Americas LLC now owns 3,597,236 shares of the company’s stock worth $101,982,000 after acquiring an additional 11,270 shares during the last quarter. 75.33% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors.

Moderna Trading Up 2.7%

MRNA traded up $0.63 during midday trading on Thursday, reaching $24.19. The company’s stock had a trading volume of 11,722,013 shares, compared to its average volume of 10,949,486. The firm has a market capitalization of $9.45 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of -3.21 and a beta of 2.02. Moderna has a 1 year low of $23.15 and a 1 year high of $56.69. The stock’s 50-day moving average is $25.80 and its 200-day moving average is $27.15.

Moderna (NASDAQ:MRNA) last issued its earnings results on Thursday, November 6th. The company reported ($0.51) earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of ($2.15) by $1.64. The firm had revenue of $1.02 billion for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $893.29 million. Moderna had a negative net margin of 94.31% and a negative return on equity of 25.96%. The business’s revenue was down 45.4% on a year-over-year basis. During the same quarter in the prior year, the firm posted $0.03 earnings per share. Moderna has set its FY 2025 guidance at EPS. As a group, equities research analysts forecast that Moderna will post -9.61 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

A number of research firms have issued reports on MRNA. Bank of America cut their price target on Moderna from $26.00 to $25.00 and set an “underperform” rating for the company in a research note on Tuesday, July 22nd. Needham & Company LLC restated a “hold” rating on shares of Moderna in a research note on Monday, October 20th. UBS Group reduced their price target on shares of Moderna from $70.00 to $40.00 and set a “buy” rating for the company in a research report on Thursday, October 23rd. Citigroup reduced their price target on shares of Moderna from $30.00 to $28.00 and set a “neutral” rating for the company in a research report on Thursday, October 23rd. Finally, Evercore ISI set a $32.00 price objective on shares of Moderna in a report on Friday, August 1st. One investment analyst has rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, three have assigned a Buy rating, twelve have issued a Hold rating and five have given a Sell rating to the company. According to MarketBeat, Moderna has a consensus rating of “Hold” and an average target price of $36.86.

About Moderna

Moderna, Inc, a biotechnology company, discovers, develops, and commercializes messenger RNA therapeutics and vaccines for the treatment of infectious diseases, immuno-oncology, rare diseases, autoimmune, and cardiovascular diseases in the United States, Europe, and internationally. Its respiratory vaccines include COVID-19, influenza, and respiratory syncytial virus, spikevax, and hMPV/PIV3 vaccines; latent vaccines comprise cytomegalovirus, epstein-barr virus, herpes simplex virus, varicella zoster virus, and human immunodeficiency virus vaccines; public health vaccines consists of Zika, Nipah, Mpox vaccines; and infectious diseases vaccines, such as lyme and norovirus vaccines.