Investors Buy High Volume of Editas Medicine Call Options (NASDAQ:EDIT)

Editas Medicine, Inc. (NASDAQ:EDIT) was the recipient of some unusual options trading activity on Monday. Investors acquired 7,310 call options on the stock. This is an increase of approximately 642% compared to the typical daily volume of 985 call options.

Institutional Trading of Editas Medicine

A number of large investors have recently made changes to their positions in the company. State Street Corp increased its stake in Editas Medicine by 43.8% in the second quarter. State Street Corp now owns 7,879,890 shares of the company’s stock valued at $93,219,000 after purchasing an additional 2,399,852 shares during the last quarter. BlackRock Inc. increased its stake in Editas Medicine by 2.4% in the second quarter. BlackRock Inc. now owns 7,595,696 shares of the company’s stock valued at $62,513,000 after purchasing an additional 177,334 shares during the last quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. increased its stake in Editas Medicine by 3.0% in the first quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 6,876,539 shares of the company’s stock valued at $130,792,000 after purchasing an additional 202,642 shares during the last quarter. Deep Track Capital LP purchased a new position in Editas Medicine in the second quarter valued at approximately $28,424,000. Finally, Marshall Wace LLP purchased a new position in Editas Medicine in the second quarter valued at approximately $23,359,000. 76.61% of the stock is currently owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

Wall Street Analyst Weigh In

A number of research analysts have commented on the stock. Stifel Nicolaus raised shares of Editas Medicine from a “hold” rating to a “buy” rating and upped their target price for the company from $9.00 to $17.00 in a research report on Thursday, September 28th. JPMorgan Chase & Co. raised shares of Editas Medicine from an “underweight” rating to a “neutral” rating and set a $8.00 target price on the stock in a research report on Wednesday, October 18th. Cantor Fitzgerald cut shares of Editas Medicine from an “overweight” rating to a “neutral” rating in a research report on Tuesday, October 17th. Chardan Capital decreased their target price on shares of Editas Medicine from $22.00 to $19.00 and set a “buy” rating on the stock in a research report on Wednesday, August 2nd. Finally, Oppenheimer reaffirmed a “market perform” rating and issued a $12.00 target price on shares of Editas Medicine in a research report on Thursday, August 3rd. Two equities research analysts have rated the stock with a sell rating, six have given a hold rating and five have assigned a buy rating to the company. According to data from MarketBeat.com, the company has a consensus rating of “Hold” and a consensus price target of $13.46.

Editas Medicine Stock Performance

EDIT stock opened at $10.84 on Tuesday. The company’s 50 day moving average price is $7.55 and its 200 day moving average price is $8.50. Editas Medicine has a fifty-two week low of $6.08 and a fifty-two week high of $11.93. The firm has a market capitalization of $885.35 million, a price-to-earnings ratio of -4.01 and a beta of 1.78.

Editas Medicine (NASDAQ:EDIT) last released its earnings results on Friday, November 3rd. The company reported ($0.55) earnings per share for the quarter, topping analysts’ consensus estimates of ($0.64) by $0.09. Editas Medicine had a negative net margin of 792.70% and a negative return on equity of 54.24%. The firm had revenue of $5.34 million for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $3.70 million. During the same period in the prior year, the firm earned ($0.81) earnings per share. The business’s quarterly revenue was up 1171.4% compared to the same quarter last year. Equities analysts forecast that Editas Medicine will post -2.46 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Editas Medicine Company Profile

Editas Medicine, Inc, a clinical stage genome editing company, focuses on developing transformative genomic medicines to treat a range of serious diseases. It develops a proprietary gene editing platform based on CRISPR technology. The company develops EDIT-101, which is in Phase 1/2 BRILLIANCE trial for Leber Congenital Amaurosis 10; autosomal dominant retinitis pigmentosa; and EDIT-301, a clinical development gene-edited medicine to treat sickle cell disease and transfusion-dependent beta-thalassemia.