Headlands Technologies LLC Grows Stock Position in Prothena Co. plc (NASDAQ:PRTA)

Headlands Technologies LLC boosted its position in Prothena Co. plc (NASDAQ:PRTA) by 196.5% during the fourth quarter, according to the company in its most recent 13F filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). The fund owned 7,330 shares of the biotechnology company’s stock after buying an additional 4,858 shares during the period. Headlands Technologies LLC’s holdings in Prothena were worth $102,000 as of its most recent SEC filing.

Other institutional investors also recently bought and sold shares of the company. Teacher Retirement System of Texas acquired a new position in shares of Prothena during the fourth quarter worth about $145,000. Purkiss Capital Advisors LLC purchased a new stake in Prothena in the 4th quarter valued at approximately $149,000. Chicago Partners Investment Group LLC acquired a new position in Prothena during the 4th quarter worth approximately $159,000. China Universal Asset Management Co. Ltd. raised its stake in shares of Prothena by 10.3% during the 4th quarter. China Universal Asset Management Co. Ltd. now owns 11,409 shares of the biotechnology company’s stock worth $158,000 after buying an additional 1,065 shares in the last quarter. Finally, KLP Kapitalforvaltning AS acquired a new stake in shares of Prothena in the 4th quarter valued at approximately $179,000. 97.08% of the stock is owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

Wall Street Analyst Weigh In

A number of brokerages recently weighed in on PRTA. Oppenheimer upped their price objective on Prothena from $58.00 to $62.00 and gave the stock an “outperform” rating in a report on Friday, February 7th. Royal Bank of Canada reduced their price objective on shares of Prothena from $24.00 to $20.00 and set a “sector perform” rating for the company in a research note on Friday, February 21st. StockNews.com upgraded shares of Prothena from a “sell” rating to a “hold” rating in a research report on Monday, February 24th. Bank of America reduced their price target on shares of Prothena from $26.00 to $22.00 and set a “neutral” rating for the company in a research report on Thursday, December 19th. Finally, Chardan Capital reissued a “buy” rating and set a $40.00 price target on shares of Prothena in a research note on Friday, February 21st. Three equities research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and six have assigned a buy rating to the company. Based on data from MarketBeat, the company has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus target price of $55.00.

Prothena Price Performance

Shares of PRTA opened at $10.86 on Monday. Prothena Co. plc has a 1-year low of $10.68 and a 1-year high of $25.42. The firm has a 50 day simple moving average of $14.02 and a 200-day simple moving average of $15.18. The stock has a market cap of $584.56 million, a price-to-earnings ratio of -4.72 and a beta of 0.07.

Prothena (NASDAQ:PRTA) last released its quarterly earnings results 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). Prothena had a negative return on equity of 22.67% and a negative net margin of 90.50%. The company had revenue of $2.12 million for the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $7.53 million. On average, equities analysts expect that Prothena Co. plc will post -4.04 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Prothena Company Profile

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.