The Vanguard Group, Inc. recently announced the acquisition of new stake in Novavax, Inc. (NASDAQ:NVAX). The institutional investor has increased its shareholding in the Healthcare company by 9.57% to 11.32 million shares with purchase of 0.99 million shares. This fresh investment now brings its stake to 12.00% valued currently at $75.42 million. In addition, Shah Capital Management, Inc. raised its holdings by 0.85 million to 6.33 million shares. And BlackRock Fund Advisors has lifted its position by 2.85% or 0.17 million shares – to 6.12 million shares.
With over 6.08 million Novavax, Inc. (NVAX) shares trading Monday and a closing price of $5.75 on the day, the dollar volume was approximately $34.94 million. The shares have shown a negative half year performance of -26.75% and its price on 12/04/23 gained nearly 3.23%. Currently, there are 118.79M common shares owned by the public and among those 110.21M 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: 6 analysts who have offered their price forecasts for NVAX have a consensus price objective of $20.20. The analysts have set the share’s price value over the next 12 months at a high of $38.00 and a low of $5.00. The average price target is 71.53% above its recent price level and a downside to the estimated low will see the stock lose -15.0% over that period. But an upside of 84.87% will see the stock hit the forecast high price target while median target price for the stock is $15.00.
Insiders at the company have transacted a total of 40 times over the past 12 months, according to data filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). 25 of these insider trades were purchases, accounting for 86,677 shares. Insider sales of the common stock occurred on 15 occasions, with total insider shares sold totaling 24,913 shares.
The top 3 mutual fund holders in Novavax, Inc. are SPDR S&P Biotech ETF, Vanguard Total Stock Market ETF, and Vanguard Small Cap Index Fund. SPDR S&P Biotech ETF owns 8.63 million shares of the company’s stock, all valued at over $57.5 million. The company bought an additional 83695.0 shares recently to bring their total holdings to about 9.15% of the shares outstanding. Vanguard Total Stock Market ETF bought 97805.0 shares to see its total holdings expand to 2.85 million shares valued at over $18.95 million and representing 3.01% of the shares outstanding. Vanguard Small Cap Index Fund bought 1116.0 shares to bring its total holdings to over 2.3 million shares at a value of $15.35 million. Vanguard Small Cap Index Fund now owns shares totaling to 2.44% of the shares outstanding.
Shares of Novavax, Inc. (NASDAQ: NVAX) opened at $5.52, down -$0.05 from a prior closing price of $5.57. However, the script later moved the day high at 5.85, up 3.23%. The company’s stock has a 5-day price change of 5.31% and -36.46% over the past three months. NVAX shares are trading -44.07% year to date (YTD), with the 12-month market performance down to -65.88% lower. It has a 12-month low price of $5.30 and touched a high of $18.55 over the same period. NVAX has an average intraday trading volume of 8.63 million shares. The stock is trading above its simple moving averages at the SMA20, SMA50, and SMA200, as the current price level is off by -4.88%, -12.46%, and -23.29% respectively.
Institutional ownership of Novavax, Inc. (NASDAQ: NVAX) shares accounts for 52.86% of the company’s 118.79M shares outstanding. Mutual fund holders own 33.29%, while other institutional holders and individual stakeholders account for 33.79% and 0.36% respectively.
It has a market capitalization of $683.04M and a beta (3y monthly) value of 1.57. The earnings-per-share (ttm) stands at -$6.38. Price movements for the stock have been influenced by the stock’s volatility, which stands at 6.23% over the week and 6.12% over the month.
Analysts forecast that Novavax, Inc. (NVAX) will achieve an EPS of -$0.38 for the current quarter, -$0.34 for the next quarter and -$0.72 for 2024. The lowest estimate earnings-per-share for the quarter is -$1.29 while analysts give the company a high EPS estimate of $0.24. Comparatively, EPS for the current quarter was -$2.28 a year ago. Earnings per share for the fiscal year are expected to increase by 56.61%, and 78.19% over the next financial year.
If you are looking to buy this stock, then you may note that the average analyst recommendation by 6 brokerage firm advisors rate Novavax, Inc. (NVAX) as a “Moderate Buy” at a consensus score of 2.50. Specifically, 3 Wall Street analysts polled rate the stock as a buy, while 1 of the 6 advise that investors “hold,” and 1 rated it as a “Sell.”
Looking at the support for the NVAX, a number of firms have released research notes about the stock. B. Riley Securities stated their Buy rating for the stock in a research note on August 09, 2023, with the firm’s price target at $15.
