Novavax, Inc. (NASDAQ:NVAX) Receives Average Rating of “Hold” from Brokerages

Novavax, Inc. (NASDAQ:NVAX) has earned an average recommendation of “Hold” from the ten analysts that are currently covering the company, MarketBeat.com reports. Four investment analysts have rated the stock with a sell rating, one has issued a hold rating and five have assigned a buy rating to the company. The average 12 month target price among brokers that have issued ratings on the stock in the last year is $12.1250.

Several equities research analysts have issued reports on NVAX shares. TD Cowen boosted their price objective on shares of Novavax from $8.00 to $9.00 and gave the company a “hold” rating in a research report on Wednesday, May 6th. Wall Street Zen raised shares of Novavax from a “sell” rating to a “hold” rating in a research report on Sunday. HC Wainwright boosted their price objective on shares of Novavax from $11.00 to $16.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a research report on Friday, February 27th. Weiss Ratings cut shares of Novavax from a “hold (c-)” rating to a “sell (d)” rating in a research report on Thursday, May 7th. Finally, Jefferies Financial Group reissued a “buy” rating on shares of Novavax in a research report on Thursday, March 12th.

Institutional Investors Weigh In On Novavax

Several large investors have recently added to or reduced their stakes in NVAX. Shah Capital Management boosted its position in Novavax by 23.3% in the 4th quarter. Shah Capital Management now owns 14,558,780 shares of the biopharmaceutical company’s stock valued at $97,835,000 after buying an additional 2,747,000 shares during the period. State Street Corp boosted its position in Novavax by 32.3% in the 4th quarter. State Street Corp now owns 9,523,646 shares of the biopharmaceutical company’s stock valued at $63,999,000 after buying an additional 2,326,927 shares during the period. UBS Group AG boosted its position in Novavax by 40.3% in the 4th quarter. UBS Group AG now owns 4,894,284 shares of the biopharmaceutical company’s stock valued at $32,890,000 after buying an additional 1,405,981 shares during the period. Allianz Asset Management GmbH boosted its position in Novavax by 162.6% in the 3rd quarter. Allianz Asset Management GmbH now owns 1,409,734 shares of the biopharmaceutical company’s stock valued at $12,222,000 after buying an additional 872,987 shares during the period. Finally, Farallon Capital Management LLC boosted its position in Novavax by 4,775.0% in the 3rd quarter. Farallon Capital Management LLC now owns 780,000 shares of the biopharmaceutical company’s stock valued at $6,763,000 after buying an additional 764,000 shares during the period. 53.04% of the stock is owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

Novavax Stock Performance

Shares of NASDAQ NVAX opened at $10.51 on Tuesday. The business’s 50 day moving average price is $8.88 and its 200-day moving average price is $8.39. Novavax has a fifty-two week low of $6.13 and a fifty-two week high of $11.97. The company has a market cap of $1.73 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of -18.12 and a beta of 2.45.

Novavax (NASDAQ:NVAX) last issued its quarterly earnings results on Wednesday, May 6th. The biopharmaceutical company reported ($0.06) earnings per share for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of ($0.25) by $0.19. The firm had revenue of $118.90 million for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $79.81 million. Novavax had a negative return on equity of 14.82% and a negative net margin of 14.73%.The company’s revenue for the quarter was down 79.0% on a year-over-year basis. During the same period in the prior year, the business posted $2.93 earnings per share. Sell-side analysts predict that Novavax will post -0.19 earnings per share for the current year.

About Novavax

Novavax, Inc is a clinical-stage biotechnology company headquartered in Gaithersburg, Maryland, that specializes in the discovery, development and commercialization of next-generation vaccines to prevent serious infectious diseases. Founded in 1987, the company has built a platform based on recombinant nanoparticle technology and its proprietary Matrix-M™ adjuvant to enhance immune responses.

The company’s lead product is NVX-CoV2373, a protein-based vaccine designed to elicit a robust immune response against the SARS-CoV-2 virus.