Nkarta (NASDAQ:NKTX) Lowered to “Sell” Rating by Wall Street Zen

Nkarta (NASDAQ:NKTX) was downgraded by stock analysts at Wall Street Zen from a “hold” rating to a “sell” rating in a report issued on Saturday.

Several other brokerages also recently issued reports on NKTX. Weiss Ratings restated a “sell (d-)” rating on shares of Nkarta in a research report on Monday, December 29th. Needham & Company LLC boosted their target price on shares of Nkarta from $10.00 to $11.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a research note on Thursday. Three equities research analysts have rated the stock with a Buy rating, one has assigned a Hold rating and one has given a Sell rating to the company. According to data from MarketBeat, Nkarta has a consensus rating of “Hold” and a consensus target price of $12.00.

Nkarta Trading Down 3.7%

NASDAQ:NKTX opened at $2.06 on Friday. The company has a market capitalization of $153.04 million, a P/E ratio of -1.47 and a beta of 0.47. The firm has a 50-day moving average price of $2.28 and a two-hundred day moving average price of $2.10. Nkarta has a twelve month low of $1.42 and a twelve month high of $2.81.

Nkarta (NASDAQ:NKTX) last released its quarterly earnings results on Wednesday, March 25th. The company reported ($0.37) EPS for the quarter, missing the consensus estimate of ($0.32) by ($0.05). On average, equities research analysts predict that Nkarta will post -1.7 earnings per share for the current year.

Insider Buying and Selling at Nkarta

In other Nkarta news, CEO Paul J. Hastings sold 26,046 shares of the stock in a transaction on Thursday, January 15th. The stock was sold at an average price of $2.07, for a total transaction of $53,915.22. Following the transaction, the chief executive officer owned 390,023 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $807,347.61. This represents a 6.26% decrease in their position. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which is available through this link. 8.40% of the stock is currently owned by corporate insiders.

Institutional Trading of Nkarta

A number of hedge funds have recently added to or reduced their stakes in the business. Abel Hall LLC purchased a new stake in Nkarta in the 4th quarter valued at about $27,000. Dynamic Technology Lab Private Ltd purchased a new position in shares of Nkarta during the 4th quarter worth about $37,000. SG Americas Securities LLC boosted its position in shares of Nkarta by 35.0% in the third quarter. SG Americas Securities LLC now owns 23,663 shares of the company’s stock worth $49,000 after acquiring an additional 6,141 shares during the last quarter. Bailard Inc. purchased a new stake in Nkarta in the third quarter valued at approximately $61,000. Finally, Forefront Wealth Partners LLC purchased a new stake in Nkarta in the third quarter valued at approximately $82,000. 80.54% of the stock is owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

Nkarta Company Profile

Nkarta, Inc is a clinical-stage biotechnology company specializing in the development of off-the-shelf natural killer (NK) cell therapies for the treatment of cancer. Leveraging proprietary activation and expansion technologies, Nkarta aims to harness the innate tumor-killing properties of NK cells while incorporating targeted immuno-engineering approaches to enhance safety, potency and persistence in patients. The company’s platform supports both allogeneic cell manufacturing and genetic modifications to generate chimeric antigen receptor-expressing NK cell candidates designed to address a range of hematologic and solid tumors.

Nkarta’s lead program, NKX019, is an anti-CD19 CAR-NK cell therapy in early-phase clinical trials for relapsed or refractory B-cell malignancies.