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

Valneva SE (NASDAQ:VALN) gapped up before the market opened on Monday . The stock had previously closed at $7.44, but opened at $8.01. Valneva shares last traded at $7.77, with a volume of 53,450 shares traded.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

Separately, HC Wainwright cut their price objective on shares of Valneva from $18.00 to $17.00 and set a “buy” rating on the stock in a research report on Wednesday, February 19th.

Valneva Stock Up 5.9 %

The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.70, a current ratio of 2.78 and a quick ratio of 2.25. The company has a 50-day simple moving average of $5.25 and a 200-day simple moving average of $5.66. The firm has a market cap of $640.33 million, a PE ratio of -60.62 and a beta of 1.98.

Institutional Trading of Valneva

Several institutional investors and hedge funds have recently made changes to their positions in the business. Wells Fargo & Company MN boosted its position in Valneva by 14.3% in the 4th quarter. Wells Fargo & Company MN now owns 246,766 shares of the company’s stock valued at $1,079,000 after buying an additional 30,859 shares during the period. AlphaCentric Advisors LLC boosted its holdings in shares of Valneva by 33.7% in the third quarter. AlphaCentric Advisors LLC now owns 118,000 shares of the company’s stock valued at $717,000 after purchasing an additional 29,748 shares during the period. Finally, ABC Arbitrage SA bought a new position in Valneva in the fourth quarter worth approximately $84,000. 11.39% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors.

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.