Insider Selling: Ionis Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (NASDAQ:IONS) EVP Sells 2,430 Shares of Stock

Ionis Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (NASDAQ:IONS) EVP Richard S. Geary sold 2,430 shares of the stock in a transaction dated Monday, August 5th. The stock was sold at an average price of $48.00, for a total transaction of $116,640.00. Following the completion of the sale, the executive vice president now directly owns 85,508 shares in the company, valued at $4,104,384. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available at this link.

Ionis Pharmaceuticals Trading Up 0.1 %

Ionis Pharmaceuticals stock traded up $0.03 during mid-day trading on Tuesday, hitting $47.03. The company’s stock had a trading volume of 2,627,408 shares, compared to its average volume of 1,230,697. The business has a 50 day moving average price of $44.94 and a 200-day moving average price of $44.31. Ionis Pharmaceuticals, Inc. has a 12 month low of $35.95 and a 12 month high of $54.44. The stock has a market cap of $6.86 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of -17.71 and a beta of 0.40. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 4.15, a current ratio of 7.37 and a quick ratio of 7.28.

Ionis Pharmaceuticals (NASDAQ:IONS) last released its earnings results on Thursday, August 1st. The company reported ($0.45) earnings per share for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of ($0.92) by $0.47. The company had revenue of $225.00 million during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $152.35 million. Ionis Pharmaceuticals had a negative return on equity of 109.65% and a negative net margin of 44.90%. Ionis Pharmaceuticals’s revenue for the quarter was up 19.7% on a year-over-year basis. During the same quarter in the previous year, the company posted $0.60 EPS. As a group, analysts forecast that Ionis Pharmaceuticals, Inc. will post -3.9 EPS for the current year.

Institutional Trading of Ionis Pharmaceuticals

Several hedge funds and other institutional investors have recently bought and sold shares of the stock. Tennessee Valley Asset Management Partners purchased a new position in shares of Ionis Pharmaceuticals in the fourth quarter worth $34,000. Friedenthal Financial bought a new position in shares of Ionis Pharmaceuticals during the fourth quarter valued at about $720,000. Strs Ohio bought a new stake in shares of Ionis Pharmaceuticals in the fourth quarter worth about $1,253,000. HealthInvest Partners AB purchased a new position in Ionis Pharmaceuticals during the 4th quarter valued at about $1,226,000. Finally, abrdn plc bought a new position in Ionis Pharmaceuticals during the 4th quarter valued at approximately $6,901,000. Institutional investors own 93.86% of the company’s stock.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

Several analysts have issued reports on IONS shares. Barclays increased their target price on shares of Ionis Pharmaceuticals from $45.00 to $51.00 and gave the stock an “equal weight” rating in a research note on Friday. Oppenheimer lifted their price objective on Ionis Pharmaceuticals from $72.00 to $75.00 and gave the company an “outperform” rating in a research note on Tuesday, April 9th. TD Cowen upped their target price on Ionis Pharmaceuticals from $54.00 to $59.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a research note on Tuesday, July 23rd. Needham & Company LLC reiterated a “buy” rating and set a $60.00 price target on shares of Ionis Pharmaceuticals in a research report on Friday. Finally, Stifel Nicolaus boosted their price objective on Ionis Pharmaceuticals from $50.00 to $53.00 and gave the stock a “hold” rating in a report on Thursday, June 27th. One research analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, seven have given a hold rating, twelve have given a buy rating and two have given a strong buy rating to the company. According to MarketBeat, Ionis Pharmaceuticals presently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus target price of $60.68.

About Ionis Pharmaceuticals

Ionis Pharmaceuticals, Inc discovers and develops RNA-targeted therapeutics in the United States. The company offers SPINRAZA for spinal muscular atrophy (SMA) in pediatric and adult patients; TEGSEDI, an antisense injection for the treatment of polyneuropathy caused by hereditary transthyretin amyloidosis in adults; and WAYLIVRA, an antisense medicine for treatment for familial chylomicronemia syndrome (FCS) and familial partial lipodystrophy.