Adaptive Biotechnologies (NASDAQ:ADPT) Sees Unusually-High Trading Volume on Analyst Upgrade

Adaptive Biotechnologies Co. (NASDAQ:ADPT) saw strong trading volume on Monday after Morgan Stanley raised their price target on the stock from $7.00 to $9.00. Morgan Stanley currently has an equal weight rating on the stock. 1,380,969 shares changed hands during trading, a decline of 11% from the previous session’s volume of 1,546,766 shares.The stock last traded at $10.11 and had previously closed at $9.84.

A number of other brokerages have also commented on ADPT. The Goldman Sachs Group increased their price target on shares of Adaptive Biotechnologies from $9.00 to $10.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a report on Friday. Piper Sandler reiterated an “overweight” rating and issued a $11.00 price objective (up from $7.00) on shares of Adaptive Biotechnologies in a report on Thursday, February 20th. Finally, Scotiabank raised their price objective on Adaptive Biotechnologies from $10.00 to $12.00 and gave the company a “sector outperform” rating in a report on Thursday, February 13th. One research analyst has rated the stock with a hold rating and five have assigned a buy rating to the stock. According to data from MarketBeat.com, Adaptive Biotechnologies presently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $9.50.

Insider Activity at Adaptive Biotechnologies

In related news, insider Francis Lo sold 20,875 shares of Adaptive Biotechnologies stock in a transaction dated Wednesday, March 5th. The stock was sold at an average price of $6.99, for a total value of $145,916.25. Following the completion of the sale, the insider now directly owns 332,846 shares in the company, valued at approximately $2,326,593.54. This trade represents a 5.90 % decrease in their position. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which can be accessed through the SEC website. Also, CEO Chad M. Robins sold 158,921 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction dated Friday, February 14th. The shares were sold at an average price of $8.46, for a total transaction of $1,344,471.66. Following the sale, the chief executive officer now directly owns 2,576,701 shares in the company, valued at approximately $21,798,890.46. The trade was a 5.81 % decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. In the last three months, insiders have sold 826,013 shares of company stock valued at $6,543,452. 6.20% of the stock is owned by corporate insiders.

Institutional Trading of Adaptive Biotechnologies

A number of hedge funds have recently bought and sold shares of ADPT. Barclays PLC increased its holdings in Adaptive Biotechnologies by 149.5% during the third quarter. Barclays PLC now owns 230,177 shares of the company’s stock valued at $1,180,000 after buying an additional 137,936 shares during the last quarter. B. Riley Wealth Advisors Inc. lifted its position in Adaptive Biotechnologies by 48.1% during the third quarter. B. Riley Wealth Advisors Inc. now owns 20,000 shares of the company’s stock valued at $102,000 after purchasing an additional 6,500 shares in the last quarter. GAMMA Investing LLC bought a new stake in Adaptive Biotechnologies during the fourth quarter valued at about $59,000. SG Americas Securities LLC lifted its position in shares of Adaptive Biotechnologies by 11.7% during the 4th quarter. SG Americas Securities LLC now owns 45,944 shares of the company’s stock valued at $275,000 after buying an additional 4,799 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Impact Partnership Wealth LLC boosted its position in shares of Adaptive Biotechnologies by 8.8% in the fourth quarter. Impact Partnership Wealth LLC now owns 19,078 shares of the company’s stock worth $114,000 after purchasing an additional 1,539 shares during the period. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 99.17% of the company’s stock.

Adaptive Biotechnologies Trading Up 1.9 %

The stock has a 50 day simple moving average of $7.76 and a 200-day simple moving average of $6.91. The firm has a market cap of $1.52 billion, a PE ratio of -9.20 and a beta of 1.75.

Adaptive Biotechnologies (NASDAQ:ADPT) last posted its quarterly earnings results on Thursday, May 1st. The company reported ($0.20) earnings per share for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of ($0.28) by $0.08. Adaptive Biotechnologies had a negative return on equity of 64.65% and a negative net margin of 89.12%. The business had revenue of $52.44 million during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $42.13 million. During the same period in the prior year, the company posted ($0.33) EPS. The firm’s revenue for the quarter was up 25.2% compared to the same quarter last year. On average, equities research analysts expect that Adaptive Biotechnologies Co. will post -0.92 EPS for the current year.

About Adaptive Biotechnologies

Adaptive Biotechnologies Corporation, a commercial-stage company, develops an immune medicine platform for the diagnosis and treatment of various diseases. The company offers immunosequencing platform which combines a suite of proprietary chemistry, computational biology, and machine learning to generate clinical immunomics data to decode the adaptive immune system.