Absci (NASDAQ:ABSI) Shares Up 7.7% - Should You Buy?

Key Points

• Stock move: Shares jumped 7.7% to $3.965 on Thursday with ~2.65M shares traded (below the 3.75M daily average), valuing Absci at about $608 million.
• Analyst backdrop: Broker views are mixed—Needham reiterates a Buy ($7 PT), Morgan Stanley cut to Equal Weight ($4.32), Weiss rates Sell—leaving a MarketBeat consensus of Hold and a $6.44 target.
• Fundamentals and insider activity: Absci missed the quarter (EPS -$0.23 vs -$0.16 expected; revenue $0.65M vs $1.38M) and shows deeply negative margins, while insiders traded recently (CEO sold; Andreas Busch bought 100k shares), with insiders owning ~10.5% and institutions ~52%.

Shares of Absci Corporation (NASDAQ:ABSI - Get Free Report) rose 7.7% on Thursday . The company traded as high as $3.94 and last traded at $3.9650. Approximately 2,647,072 shares traded hands during trading, a decline of 29% from the average daily volume of 3,752,759 shares. The stock had previously closed at $3.68.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

Several brokerages have weighed in on ABSI. Needham & Company LLC reissued a "buy" rating and issued a $7.00 price target on shares of Absci in a report on Wednesday, March 25th. Weiss Ratings restated a "sell (d-)" rating on shares of Absci in a research note on Monday. Finally, Morgan Stanley cut Absci from an "overweight" rating to an "equal weight" rating and set a $4.32 price target for the company. in a research report on Thursday, January 8th. Three investment analysts have rated the stock with a Buy rating, one has issued a Hold rating and one has assigned a Sell rating to the company's stock. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, Absci has a consensus rating of "Hold" and a consensus target price of $6.44.

Absci Stock Up 8.0%

The firm has a market capitalization of $608.25 million, a PE ratio of -4.68 and a beta of 2.00. The stock has a 50-day moving average price of $2.87 and a 200 day moving average price of $3.27.

Absci (NASDAQ:ABSI - Get Free Report) last posted its quarterly earnings data on Tuesday, March 24th. The company reported ($0.23) EPS for the quarter, missing analysts' consensus estimates of ($0.16) by ($0.07). The business had revenue of $0.65 million during the quarter, compared to analysts' expectations of $1.38 million. Absci had a negative net margin of 4,113.68% and a negative return on equity of 62.33%. As a group, equities analysts predict that Absci Corporation will post -0.7 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Insider Buying and Selling

In related news, CEO Sean Mcclain sold 26,761 shares of the business's stock in a transaction that occurred on Monday, February 2nd. The stock was sold at an average price of $2.99, for a total transaction of $80,015.39. Following the completion of the sale, the chief executive officer directly owned 8,334,567 shares in the company, valued at approximately $24,920,355.33. The trade was a 0.32% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which can be accessed through the SEC website. Also, insider Andreas Busch purchased 100,000 shares of the company's stock in a transaction that occurred on Thursday, March 12th. The shares were purchased at an average price of $2.29 per share, with a total value of $229,000.00. Following the completion of the transaction, the insider directly owned 421,446 shares of the company's stock, valued at $965,111.34. This represents a 31.11% increase in their position. The disclosure for this purchase is available in the SEC filing. 10.49% of the stock is owned by insiders.

Institutional Trading of Absci

Large investors have recently made changes to their positions in the company. Quarry LP purchased a new stake in shares of Absci during the third quarter worth approximately $26,000. Scientech Research LLC purchased a new stake in Absci in the 3rd quarter valued at $31,000. HB Wealth Management LLC acquired a new position in shares of Absci in the 3rd quarter valued at $31,000. Principal Financial Group Inc. acquired a new position in shares of Absci in the 3rd quarter valued at $31,000. Finally, Xponance LLC acquired a new position in shares of Absci in the 4th quarter valued at $37,000. 52.05% of the stock is currently owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

About Absci

Absci Corporation NASDAQ: ABSI is a biotechnology company that applies machine learning, synthetic biology and automation to accelerate the discovery and development of protein-based therapeutics. The company's Integrated Drug Creation® (IDC®) platform is designed to identify and produce novel antibody and enzyme candidates at speeds and scales that traditional biopharma discovery methods cannot match. Absci works with pharmaceutical and biotechnology partners to generate, screen and optimize protein molecules for a wide range of therapeutic applications.

The core of Absci's offering is its end-to-end discovery engine, which combines proprietary algorithms, high-throughput laboratory automation and a deep learning framework.

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