Zentalis Pharmaceuticals (NASDAQ:ZNTL) Price Target Raised to $10.00

Key Points

• Guggenheim raised its price target on Zentalis to $10.00 (from $6.00) and keeps a "buy" rating, implying about a 108.55% upside, and the stock jumped roughly 8.5% to open at $4.80 after the news.
• Analyst views remain mixed with a MarketBeat consensus of "Hold" and a $5.83 consensus target (breakdown: 1 Strong Buy, 1 Buy, 4 Hold, 1 Sell), and the company reports negative EPS and a market cap near $340 million.
• Insiders have been selling (insider ownership ~1.9%), but several institutional investors — notably AQR, Millennium and Jane Street — significantly increased their stakes in recent quarters.

Zentalis Pharmaceuticals (NASDAQ:ZNTL - Get Free Report) had its price objective boosted by equities researchers at Guggenheim from $6.00 to $10.00 in a research report issued to clients and investors on Friday,Benzinga reports. The brokerage currently has a "buy" rating on the stock. Guggenheim's price objective would suggest a potential upside of 108.55% from the stock's previous close.

A number of other research firms have also issued reports on ZNTL. Weiss Ratings restated a "sell (d-)" rating on shares of Zentalis Pharmaceuticals in a report on Tuesday. Wall Street Zen downgraded shares of Zentalis Pharmaceuticals from a "hold" rating to a "sell" rating in a research note on Saturday, March 28th. Finally, Wells Fargo & Company assumed coverage on Zentalis Pharmaceuticals in a report on Tuesday, March 17th. They issued an "equal weight" rating and a $5.00 target price for the company. One equities research analyst has rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, one has given a Buy rating, four have given a Hold rating and one has assigned a Sell rating to the company. According to MarketBeat.com, the company presently has a consensus rating of "Hold" and a consensus target price of $5.83.

Zentalis Pharmaceuticals Stock Up 8.5%

Shares of Zentalis Pharmaceuticals stock opened at $4.80 on Friday. Zentalis Pharmaceuticals has a 12-month low of $1.09 and a 12-month high of $4.50. The firm has a market capitalization of $340.11 million, a PE ratio of -2.52 and a beta of 1.65. The stock's fifty day moving average is $2.55 and its 200-day moving average is $2.02.

Zentalis Pharmaceuticals (NASDAQ:ZNTL - Get Free Report) last issued its quarterly earnings results on Thursday, March 26th. The company reported ($0.49) earnings per share for the quarter, missing analysts' consensus estimates of ($0.41) by ($0.08). Analysts expect that Zentalis Pharmaceuticals will post -2.42 EPS for the current year.

Insiders Place Their Bets

In other Zentalis Pharmaceuticals news, insider Vincent Vultaggio sold 29,951 shares of the company's stock in a transaction dated Friday, February 6th. The stock was sold at an average price of $2.43, for a total value of $72,780.93. Following the transaction, the insider directly owned 156,779 shares of the company's stock, valued at $380,972.97. This represents a 16.04% decrease in their position. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which is available at this hyperlink. Over the last quarter, insiders sold 46,617 shares of company stock valued at $113,417. Corporate insiders own 1.90% of the company's stock.

Institutional Inflows and Outflows

Several hedge funds have recently modified their holdings of the business. AQR Capital Management LLC boosted its holdings in Zentalis Pharmaceuticals by 177.6% in the first quarter. AQR Capital Management LLC now owns 619,330 shares of the company's stock worth $985,000 after purchasing an additional 396,233 shares in the last quarter. Millennium Management LLC raised its holdings in Zentalis Pharmaceuticals by 220.6% during the first quarter. Millennium Management LLC now owns 3,069,514 shares of the company's stock valued at $4,881,000 after buying an additional 2,111,951 shares in the last quarter. Qube Research & Technologies Ltd acquired a new stake in shares of Zentalis Pharmaceuticals in the second quarter worth about $37,000. Sei Investments Co. boosted its stake in shares of Zentalis Pharmaceuticals by 373.1% during the 2nd quarter. Sei Investments Co. now owns 167,100 shares of the company's stock worth $194,000 after acquiring an additional 131,780 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Jane Street Group LLC boosted its stake in shares of Zentalis Pharmaceuticals by 346.3% during the 2nd quarter. Jane Street Group LLC now owns 664,061 shares of the company's stock worth $770,000 after acquiring an additional 515,257 shares in the last quarter.

Zentalis Pharmaceuticals Company Profile

Zentalis Pharmaceuticals, Inc is a clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company focused on discovering and developing small molecule therapeutics for oncology. Leveraging a proprietary structure-based drug discovery platform, the company designs selective inhibitors aimed at critical cancer targets. Zentalis' research and development efforts center on delivering differentiated therapies that address unmet medical needs in solid tumors and hematologic malignancies.

The company's lead product candidate, ZN-c3, is an orally administered inhibitor of the p53-MDM2 interaction, currently being evaluated in Phase I clinical trials for advanced solid tumors and hematologic cancers.

This instant news alert was generated by narrative science technology and financial data from MarketBeat in order to provide readers with the fastest reporting and unbiased coverage. Please send any questions or comments about this story to contact@marketbeat.com.