Fidelity Management & Research Co recently announced the acquisition of new stake in Ionis Pharmaceuticals Inc. (NASDAQ:IONS). The institutional investor has increased its shareholding in the Healthcare company by 0.60% to 21.44 million shares with purchase of 0.13 million shares. This fresh investment now brings its stake to 15.00% valued currently at $758.2 million. In addition, The Vanguard Group, Inc. raised its holdings by 0.2 million to 13.55 million shares. And T. Rowe Price Investment Manageme has lifted its position by 4.67% or 0.52 million shares – to 11.68 million shares.
With over 1.58 million Ionis Pharmaceuticals Inc. (IONS) shares trading Monday and a closing price of $40.71 on the day, the dollar volume was approximately $64.33 million. The shares have shown a negative half year performance of -5.41% and its price on 05/22/23 gained nearly 3.88%. Currently, there are 142.74M common shares owned by the public and among those 141.26M shares have been available to trade.
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An analysis of what Wall Street brokers have to say about the expected price targets for this stock gives us this picture: 23 analysts who have offered their price forecasts for IONS have a consensus price objective of $48.96. The analysts have set the share’s price value over the next 12 months at a high of $88.00 and a low of $26.00. The average price target is 15.38% above its recent price level and a downside to the estimated low will see the stock lose -56.58% over that period. But an upside of 53.74% will see the stock hit the forecast high price target while median target price for the stock is $47.00.
Insiders at the company have transacted a total of 80 times over the past 12 months, according to data filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). 52 of these insider trades were purchases, accounting for 379,319 shares. Insider sales of the common stock occurred on 28 occasions, with total insider shares sold totaling 127,673 shares.
The top 3 mutual fund holders in Ionis Pharmaceuticals Inc. are BB Biotech AG, Fidelity Growth Company Fund, and T Rowe Price Mid Cap Growth Fund. BB Biotech AG owns 9.43 million shares of the company’s stock, all valued at over $333.54 million. The company bought an additional 0.2 million shares recently to bring their total holdings to about 6.60% of the shares outstanding. Fidelity Growth Company Fund sold 90943.0 shares to see its total holdings shrink to 6.85 million shares valued at over $242.22 million and representing 4.79% of the shares outstanding. T Rowe Price Mid Cap Growth Fund bought 0.52 million shares to bring its total holdings to over 4.75 million shares at a value of $167.97 million. T Rowe Price Mid Cap Growth Fund now owns shares totaling to 3.32% of the shares outstanding.
Shares of Ionis Pharmaceuticals Inc. (NASDAQ: IONS) opened at $39.17, down -$0.02 from a prior closing price of $39.19. However, the script later moved the day high at 40.83, up 3.88%. The company’s stock has a 5-day price change of 12.33% and 6.49% over the past three months. IONS shares are trading 7.78% year to date (YTD), with the 12-month market performance up to 4.04% higher. It has a 12-month low price of $32.69 and touched a high of $48.82 over the same period. IONS has an average intraday trading volume of 946.86K shares. The stock is trading above its simple moving averages at the SMA20, SMA50, and SMA200, as the current price level is off by 13.36%, 13.98%, and 1.38% respectively.
Institutional ownership of Ionis Pharmaceuticals Inc. (NASDAQ: IONS) shares accounts for 90.70% of the company’s 142.74M shares outstanding. Mutual fund holders own 33.19%, while other institutional holders and individual stakeholders account for 57.21% and 1.11% respectively.
It has a market capitalization of $5.44B and a beta (3y monthly) value of 0.52. The earnings-per-share (ttm) stands at -$2.31. Price movements for the stock have been influenced by the stock’s volatility, which stands at 4.08% over the week and 3.33% over the month.
Analysts forecast that Ionis Pharmaceuticals Inc. (IONS) will achieve an EPS of -$0.89 for the current quarter, -$0.98 for the next quarter and -$3.39 for 2024. The lowest estimate earnings-per-share for the quarter is -$1.07 while analysts give the company a high EPS estimate of -$0.71. Comparatively, EPS for the current quarter was -$0.74 a year ago. Earnings per share for the fiscal year are expected to decrease by -837.70%, and 3.70% over the next financial year.
If you are looking to buy this stock, then you may note that the average analyst recommendation by 23 brokerage firm advisors rate Ionis Pharmaceuticals Inc. (IONS) as a “Moderate Buy” at a consensus score of 2.70. Specifically, 11 Wall Street analysts polled rate the stock as a buy, while 8 of the 23 advise that investors “hold,” and 2 rated it as a “Sell.”
