Valneva (NASDAQ:VALN) Sees Strong Trading Volume – Should You Buy?

Valneva SE (NASDAQ:VALN) saw unusually-strong trading volume on Wednesday . Approximately 2,390,903 shares traded hands during trading, an increase of 6,483% from the previous session’s volume of 36,322 shares.The stock last traded at $6.16 and had previously closed at $6.04.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

A number of brokerages recently weighed in on VALN. Guggenheim decreased their price objective on shares of Valneva from $17.00 to $15.00 and set a “buy” rating for the company in a report on Monday, March 24th. HC Wainwright reaffirmed a “buy” rating and set a $17.00 price target on shares of Valneva in a report on Wednesday.

Valneva Stock Down 0.3 %

The company has a 50-day moving average of $6.97 and a two-hundred day moving average of $5.62. The company has a market capitalization of $511.13 million, a PE ratio of -48.38 and a beta of 1.85. 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 issued its quarterly earnings results on Thursday, March 20th. The company reported ($0.54) earnings per share for the quarter, missing the consensus estimate of ($0.22) by ($0.32). The firm had revenue of $56.48 million for the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $55.64 million. Valneva had a negative net margin of 4.35% and a negative return on equity of 3.93%. Sell-side analysts anticipate that Valneva SE will post 0.13 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Institutional Trading of Valneva

Several institutional investors and hedge funds have recently added to or reduced their stakes in the business. Wells Fargo & Company MN grew its position in shares of Valneva by 14.3% during the fourth quarter. Wells Fargo & Company MN now owns 246,766 shares of the company’s stock valued at $1,079,000 after purchasing an additional 30,859 shares in the last quarter. ABC Arbitrage SA bought a new position in shares of Valneva during the 4th quarter valued at approximately $84,000. Finally, GAMMA Investing LLC purchased a new position in shares of Valneva in the first quarter valued at $94,000. Institutional investors own 11.39% of the company’s stock.

Valneva Company Profile

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.