Chardan Capital Reaffirms “Buy” Rating for Prothena (NASDAQ:PRTA)

Prothena (NASDAQ:PRTA)‘s stock had its “buy” rating reissued by investment analysts at Chardan Capital in a research note issued to investors on Friday,Benzinga reports. They presently have a $40.00 price objective on the biotechnology company’s stock. Chardan Capital’s price target would indicate a potential upside of 157.07% from the company’s previous close.

Several other brokerages have also recently weighed in on PRTA. Oppenheimer raised their price objective on Prothena from $58.00 to $62.00 and gave the company an “outperform” rating in a report on Friday, February 7th. Bank of America cut their target price on shares of Prothena from $26.00 to $22.00 and set a “neutral” rating for the company in a research note on Thursday, December 19th. HC Wainwright reiterated a “buy” rating and issued a $48.00 target price (down from $84.00) on shares of Prothena in a research note on Friday, December 20th. Finally, StockNews.com downgraded shares of Prothena from a “hold” rating to a “sell” rating in a research note on Tuesday, November 19th. One analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, two have assigned a hold rating and five have given a buy rating to the stock. According to MarketBeat.com, the company currently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average price target of $45.83.

Prothena Trading Up 2.0 %

PRTA stock opened at $15.56 on Friday. The stock has a 50-day moving average price of $14.33 and a two-hundred day moving average price of $16.77. The stock has a market cap of $837.27 million, a PE ratio of -6.77 and a beta of 0.08. Prothena has a 1 year low of $11.70 and a 1 year high of $31.03.

Prothena (NASDAQ:PRTA) last announced its quarterly earnings data on Thursday, February 20th. The biotechnology company reported ($1.08) earnings per share for the quarter, missing the consensus estimate of ($1.02) by ($0.06). The company had revenue of $2.12 million during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $7.53 million. Prothena had a negative net margin of 90.50% and a negative return on equity of 22.67%. On average, analysts forecast that Prothena will post -4.04 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Institutional Investors Weigh In On Prothena

Several hedge funds have recently bought and sold shares of the stock. Two Sigma Investments LP lifted its position in Prothena by 265.4% during the fourth quarter. Two Sigma Investments LP now owns 38,394 shares of the biotechnology company’s stock worth $532,000 after acquiring an additional 27,887 shares during the last quarter. Rafferty Asset Management LLC lifted its position in Prothena by 24.8% during the fourth quarter. Rafferty Asset Management LLC now owns 77,672 shares of the biotechnology company’s stock worth $1,076,000 after acquiring an additional 15,442 shares during the last quarter. ProShare Advisors LLC lifted its position in Prothena by 29.5% during the fourth quarter. ProShare Advisors LLC now owns 14,524 shares of the biotechnology company’s stock worth $201,000 after acquiring an additional 3,312 shares during the last quarter. Man Group plc lifted its position in Prothena by 90.7% during the fourth quarter. Man Group plc now owns 77,430 shares of the biotechnology company’s stock worth $1,072,000 after acquiring an additional 36,824 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Millennium Management LLC lifted its position in Prothena by 9.3% during the fourth quarter. Millennium Management LLC now owns 123,005 shares of the biotechnology company’s stock worth $1,704,000 after acquiring an additional 10,467 shares during the last quarter. 97.08% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

About Prothena

Prothena Corporation plc, a late-stage clinical biotechnology company, focuses on discovery and development of novel therapies to treat diseases caused by protein dysregulation in the United States. The company is involved in developing birtamimab, an investigational humanized antibody that is in Phase III clinical trial for the treatment of AL amyloidosis; Prasinezumab, a humanized monoclonal antibody, for the treatment of Parkinson’s disease and other related synucleinopathies which is in Phase IIb clinical trial; NNC6019 that is in Phase lI clinical trial for the treatment of ATTR amyloidosis; and BMS-986446 and PRX012, which is in Phase I clinical trial for the treatment of Alzheimer’s disease.