Autolus Therapeutics (NASDAQ:AUTL) Shares Up 13.5% After Analyst Upgrade

Autolus Therapeutics PLC Sponsored ADR (NASDAQ:AUTL) shot up 13.5% during trading on Monday after Needham & Company LLC raised their price target on the stock from $10.00 to $11.00. Needham & Company LLC currently has a buy rating on the stock. Autolus Therapeutics traded as high as $1.89 and last traded at $1.8950. 2,745,350 shares traded hands during mid-day trading, an increase of 11% from the average session volume of 2,479,643 shares. The stock had previously closed at $1.67.

Several other brokerages also recently weighed in on AUTL. Wall Street Zen downgraded shares of Autolus Therapeutics from a “hold” rating to a “strong sell” rating in a research note on Saturday, November 15th. Weiss Ratings reaffirmed a “sell (d-)” rating on shares of Autolus Therapeutics in a research note on Wednesday, October 8th. Finally, William Blair reiterated an “outperform” rating on shares of Autolus Therapeutics in a research note on Wednesday, September 24th. Four analysts have rated the stock with a Buy rating and one has given a Sell rating to the stock. Based on data from MarketBeat, the company presently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus target price of $8.67.

Institutional Inflows and Outflows

Several large investors have recently bought and sold shares of AUTL. Mak Capital One LLC boosted its position in shares of Autolus Therapeutics by 53.5% during the 3rd quarter. Mak Capital One LLC now owns 26,017,616 shares of the company’s stock worth $42,409,000 after purchasing an additional 9,062,518 shares in the last quarter. Armistice Capital LLC lifted its stake in shares of Autolus Therapeutics by 30.0% in the third quarter. Armistice Capital LLC now owns 15,600,000 shares of the company’s stock valued at $25,428,000 after purchasing an additional 3,600,000 shares during the period. TFG Asset Management GP Ltd lifted its stake in shares of Autolus Therapeutics by 10.5% in the second quarter. TFG Asset Management GP Ltd now owns 9,500,000 shares of the company’s stock valued at $21,660,000 after purchasing an additional 900,000 shares during the period. Schroder Investment Management Group boosted its holdings in Autolus Therapeutics by 133.7% during the third quarter. Schroder Investment Management Group now owns 8,433,253 shares of the company’s stock worth $13,409,000 after buying an additional 4,824,763 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Bank of America Corp DE grew its position in Autolus Therapeutics by 108.1% during the third quarter. Bank of America Corp DE now owns 2,029,593 shares of the company’s stock worth $3,308,000 after buying an additional 1,054,458 shares during the period. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 72.83% of the company’s stock.

Autolus Therapeutics Price Performance

The company has a market capitalization of $524.30 million, a price-to-earnings ratio of -2.37 and a beta of 2.01. The firm’s 50-day simple moving average is $1.49 and its two-hundred day simple moving average is $1.78.

Autolus Therapeutics (NASDAQ:AUTL) last announced its quarterly earnings results on Wednesday, November 12th. The company reported ($0.30) EPS for the quarter, missing the consensus estimate of ($0.23) by ($0.07). The firm had revenue of $21.19 million for the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $21.08 million. Autolus Therapeutics had a negative return on equity of 63.76% and a negative net margin of 439.69%. On average, analysts expect that Autolus Therapeutics PLC Sponsored ADR will post -0.94 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Autolus Therapeutics Company Profile

Autolus Therapeutics is a clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company specializing in the development of next-generation, programmed T cell therapies for the treatment of cancer. The company leverages proprietary technologies to engineer autologous T cells that target and eradicate tumor cells, with the aim of improving safety, efficacy and durability over existing cell therapies. Its R&D platform integrates antigen receptor design, gene editing and manufacturing optimization to generate candidates tailored for specific hematologic malignancies and solid tumor indications.

The company’s leading pipeline candidates include AUTO1, an optimized CD19-targeted CAR-T therapy for relapsed or refractory acute lymphoblastic leukemia, and AUTO3, a dual-targeted CD19/22 CAR-T program in development for diffuse large B-cell lymphoma.