Valneva (NASDAQ:VALN) Stock Price Up 14.3% on Better-Than-Expected Earnings

Key Points

• Valneva's shares surged by 14.3% following a favorable earnings report, which revealed a loss of $0.16 per share, surpassing expectations by $0.11.
• The company's revenue was significantly higher than anticipated, reporting $54.84 million compared to the consensus estimate of $46.28 million.
• Several brokerages have reinstated a "buy" rating on Valneva, with HC Wainwright setting a target price of $17.00, while Guggenheim lowered its target from $15.00 to $14.00.

Valneva SE Sponsored ADR (NASDAQ:VALN - Get Free Report) traded up 14.3% on Wednesday following a stronger than expected earnings report. The company traded as high as $10.79 and last traded at $10.75. 50,047 shares were traded during trading, a decline of 19% from the average session volume of 61,771 shares. The stock had previously closed at $9.40.

The company reported ($0.16) earnings per share for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of ($0.27) by $0.11. The company had revenue of $54.84 million for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate 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 reduced their price objective on shares of Valneva from $15.00 to $14.00 and set a "buy" rating for the company in a research report on Thursday, May 8th.

Institutional Investors Weigh In On Valneva

Hedge funds and other institutional investors have recently bought and sold shares of the company. Wells Fargo & Company MN lifted its stake in shares of Valneva by 14.3% in the 4th quarter. Wells Fargo & Company MN now owns 246,766 shares of the company's stock valued at $1,079,000 after purchasing an additional 30,859 shares during the last quarter. GAMMA Investing LLC purchased a new stake in Valneva in the 1st quarter valued at about $94,000. Finally, Frazier Life Sciences Management L.P. acquired a new position in Valneva in the second quarter valued at about $8,240,000. 11.39% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

Valneva Trading Up 5.3%

The company has a market cap of $1.03 billion, a PE ratio of -12.39 and a beta of 1.77. The company's 50 day simple moving average is $6.86 and its two-hundred day simple moving average is $6.77. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.66, a current ratio of 2.27 and a quick ratio 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.