Atea Pharmaceuticals (NASDAQ:AVIR) Trading Down 2% – Time to Sell?

Atea Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (NASDAQ:AVIR)’s stock price fell 2% on Thursday . The company traded as low as $3.98 and last traded at $4.02. 513,477 shares were traded during mid-day trading, a decline of 4% from the average session volume of 532,669 shares. The stock had previously closed at $4.10.

Wall Street Analyst Weigh In

AVIR has been the subject of a number of research analyst reports. Evercore ISI upgraded Atea Pharmaceuticals to a “strong-buy” rating in a research note on Friday, November 28th. Weiss Ratings reissued a “sell (d-)” rating on shares of Atea Pharmaceuticals in a research note on Wednesday, January 21st. One investment analyst has rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, one has issued a Buy rating, one has given a Hold rating and one has assigned a Sell rating to the company’s stock. According to MarketBeat, Atea Pharmaceuticals has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus price target of $6.00.

Atea Pharmaceuticals Trading Down 2.0%

The company has a market cap of $314.07 million, a price-to-earnings ratio of -2.27 and a beta of 0.24. The company has a fifty day moving average price of $3.50 and a two-hundred day moving average price of $3.34.

Atea Pharmaceuticals (NASDAQ:AVIR) last announced its earnings results on Wednesday, November 12th. The company reported ($0.53) earnings per share for the quarter, missing analysts’ consensus estimates of ($0.46) by ($0.07). Sell-side analysts anticipate that Atea Pharmaceuticals, Inc. will post -2.01 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Institutional Trading of Atea Pharmaceuticals

Institutional investors and hedge funds have recently bought and sold shares of the stock. Jane Street Group LLC raised its position in Atea Pharmaceuticals by 80.4% in the 1st quarter. Jane Street Group LLC now owns 102,607 shares of the company’s stock valued at $307,000 after purchasing an additional 45,716 shares during the last quarter. Johnson Investment Counsel Inc. acquired a new position in Atea Pharmaceuticals in the 2nd quarter valued at approximately $55,000. Los Angeles Capital Management LLC acquired a new stake in Atea Pharmaceuticals in the second quarter valued at approximately $123,000. Rhumbline Advisers raised its holdings in Atea Pharmaceuticals by 2.6% in the 2nd quarter. Rhumbline Advisers now owns 119,420 shares of the company’s stock valued at $430,000 after acquiring an additional 2,977 shares in the last quarter. Finally, American Century Companies Inc. boosted its stake in Atea Pharmaceuticals by 6.7% in the second quarter. American Century Companies Inc. now owns 173,791 shares of the company’s stock worth $626,000 after purchasing an additional 10,930 shares in the last quarter. 86.67% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors.

Atea Pharmaceuticals Company Profile

Atea Pharmaceuticals, Inc is a clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company focused on the discovery and development of oral antiviral therapeutics targeting RNA viruses. The company’s lead program, AT-527, is a direct-acting nucleotide prodrug licensed from Roche and is being evaluated as a potential treatment for coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19). In addition to its COVID-19 efforts, Atea’s pipeline includes other small-molecule candidates for hepatitis C virus and emerging RNA pathogens, leveraging its proprietary nucleotide chemistry platform to address significant unmet medical needs in infectious diseases.

Founded in 2014 and headquartered in Cambridge, Massachusetts, Atea operates research laboratories in the Greater Boston area and conducts clinical studies across North America, Europe and parts of Asia.