Exelixis (NASDAQ:EXEL) Given New $57.00 Price Target at Morgan Stanley

Key Points

• Morgan Stanley lowered its Exelixis price target from $60 to $57 and maintained an “equal weight” rating, implying 17.63% downside from the prior close.
• Analyst sentiment is broadly “Hold,” with an average price target of $58.62; one analyst rates the stock a Strong Buy, six Buy, ten Hold, and one Sell.
• Exelixis beat quarterly expectations, reporting EPS of $0.94 versus $0.89 expected and revenue of $658.7 million versus $646.5 million expected; revenue rose 10.2% year over year.

Exelixis (NASDAQ:EXEL - Get Free Report) had its price target dropped by equities researchers at Morgan Stanley from $60.00 to $57.00 in a note issued to investors on Friday, Benzinga reports. The brokerage currently has an "equal weight" rating on the biotechnology company's stock. Morgan Stanley's price target would indicate a potential downside of 17.63% from the stock's previous close.

A number of other analysts have also recently weighed in on the stock. Stifel Nicolaus upped their target price on shares of Exelixis from $47.00 to $51.00 and gave the company a "hold" rating in a research note on Thursday, August 6th. Wall Street Zen upgraded shares of Exelixis from a "buy" rating to a "strong-buy" rating in a research note on Monday. Leerink Partners lifted their price objective on Exelixis from $55.00 to $58.00 and gave the company a "market perform" rating in a report on Thursday, November 5th. William Blair reiterated an "outperform" rating on shares of Exelixis in a research note on Friday, September 11th. Finally, Zacks Research upgraded Exelixis from a "strong sell" rating to a "hold" rating in a research note on Tuesday, September 1st. One research analyst has rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, six have issued a Buy rating, ten have given a Hold rating and one has assigned a Sell rating to the stock. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, the company has an average rating of "Hold" and an average target price of $58.62.

Exelixis Stock Down 0.9%

Exelixis stock traded down $0.64 on Friday, hitting $69.20. The company's stock had a trading volume of 565,834 shares, compared to its average volume of 2,624,347. The firm has a market cap of $16.88 billion, a P/E ratio of 20.71, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 1.82 and a beta of 0.45. The company has a fifty day moving average price of $62.09 and a 200-day moving average price of $52.10. Exelixis has a one year low of $39.71 and a one year high of $73.69.

Exelixis (NASDAQ:EXEL - Get Free Report) last announced its quarterly earnings data on Thursday, October 29th. The biotechnology company reported $0.94 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating analysts' consensus estimates of $0.89 by $0.05. The company had revenue of $658.70 million during the quarter, compared to analysts' expectations of $646.51 million. Exelixis had a net margin of 35.45% and a return on equity of 45.54%. The business's revenue was up 10.2% on a year-over-year basis. During the same quarter in the prior year, the company posted $0.78 EPS. Analysts anticipate that Exelixis will post 3.42 EPS for the current year.

Institutional Investors Weigh In On Exelixis

A number of hedge funds have recently made changes to their positions in EXEL. BlackRock Inc. acquired a new position in Exelixis in the second quarter valued at about $1,581,991,000. State Street Corp raised its stake in shares of Exelixis by 5.5% in the third quarter. State Street Corp now owns 10,521,487 shares of the biotechnology company's stock valued at $614,560,000 after acquiring an additional 551,416 shares during the last quarter. Dimensional Fund Advisors LP raised its stake in shares of Exelixis by 0.9% in the first quarter. Dimensional Fund Advisors LP now owns 4,299,597 shares of the biotechnology company's stock valued at $184,391,000 after acquiring an additional 39,920 shares during the last quarter. First Trust Advisors LP boosted its holdings in shares of Exelixis by 10.9% in the 3rd quarter. First Trust Advisors LP now owns 2,821,047 shares of the biotechnology company's stock worth $164,777,000 after acquiring an additional 277,694 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Assetmark Inc. boosted its holdings in shares of Exelixis by 1.7% in the 1st quarter. Assetmark Inc. now owns 3,388,920 shares of the biotechnology company's stock worth $145,351,000 after acquiring an additional 58,149 shares in the last quarter. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 85.27% of the company's stock.

About Exelixis

Exelixis, Inc. is a biotechnology company focused on discovering, developing and commercializing medicines for cancer. Founded in 1994 and headquartered in Alameda, California, the company has built its business around oncology treatments and continues to advance a pipeline of potential cancer therapies. Its principal marketed medicine is cabozantinib, sold in the United States as Cabometyx and Cometriq. Cabometyx is used to treat certain patients with advanced kidney, liver and thyroid cancers, while Cometriq is used for medullary thyroid cancer.

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