Valneva (NASDAQ:VALN) Shares Gap Up Following Earnings Beat

Key Points

• Valneva SE shares gapped up from $8.50 to $9.12 after reporting better-than-expected earnings, with an EPS of ($0.16) compared to the consensus estimate of ($0.27).
• Despite recent positive earnings, Valneva has a negative return on equity of 43.05% and a negative net margin of 43.08%.
• Wells Fargo & Company recently increased its stake in Valneva shares by 14.3%, indicating growing institutional interest.

Valneva SE Sponsored ADR (NASDAQ:VALN - Get Free Report) gapped up prior to trading on Tuesday following a stronger than expected earnings report. The stock had previously closed at $8.50, but opened at $9.12. Valneva shares last traded at $9.13, with a volume of 47,131 shares.

The company reported ($0.16) earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating analysts' consensus estimates of ($0.27) by $0.11. The company had revenue of $54.84 million during the quarter, compared to analysts' expectations of $46.28 million. Valneva had a negative return on equity of 34.78% and a negative net margin of 33.87%.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

Separately, Guggenheim cut their price objective on Valneva from $15.00 to $14.00 and set a "buy" rating for the company in a report on Thursday, May 8th.

Institutional Inflows and Outflows

Institutional investors have recently made changes to their positions in the business. Wells Fargo & Company MN raised its holdings in shares of Valneva by 14.3% in the fourth quarter. Wells Fargo & Company MN now owns 246,766 shares of the company's stock valued at $1,079,000 after buying an additional 30,859 shares during the last quarter. GAMMA Investing LLC bought a new position in shares of Valneva in the first quarter valued at about $94,000. Finally, Frazier Life Sciences Management L.P. bought a new position in shares of Valneva in the second quarter valued at about $8,240,000. 11.39% of the stock is owned by institutional investors.

Valneva Price Performance

The stock has a fifty day moving average of $6.86 and a 200-day moving average of $6.75. The company has a quick ratio of 2.12, a current ratio of 2.27 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.66. The firm has a market capitalization of $981.09 million, a P/E ratio of -11.77 and a beta of 1.77.

Valneva Company Profile

Valneva SE, a specialty vaccine company, develops, manufactures, and commercializes prophylactic vaccines for infectious diseases with unmet needs. It offers IXIARO, an inactivated Vero cell culture-derived Japanese encephalitis vaccine indicated for active immunization against Japanese encephalitis; DUKORAL, an oral vaccine for the prevention of diarrhea caused by Vibrio cholera and/or heat-labile toxin producing enterotoxigenic Escherichia coli bacterium; IXCHIQ, a single-dose, live-attenuated vaccine for the prevention of disease caused by chikungunya virus; and VLA2001, an inactivated whole-virus COVID-19 vaccine.