Fidelity Management & Research Co recently announced the acquisition of new stake in Viking Therapeutics Inc (NASDAQ:VKTX). The institutional investor has increased its shareholding in the Healthcare company by 0.19% to 14.94 million shares with purchase of 28523.0 shares. This fresh investment now brings its stake to 14.94% valued currently at $146.57 million. In addition, SSgA Funds Management, Inc. raised its holdings by 1.59 million to 6.41 million shares. And BlackRock Fund Advisors has lifted its position by 4.68% or 0.26 million shares – to 5.92 million shares.
With over 8.17 million Viking Therapeutics Inc (VKTX) shares trading Monday and a closing price of $15.08 on the day, the dollar volume was approximately $123.19 million. The shares have shown a negative half year performance of -34.63% and its price on 12/04/23 gained nearly 15.91%. Currently, there are 100.03M common shares owned by the public and among those 89.39M 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: 11 analysts who have offered their price forecasts for VKTX have a consensus price objective of $33.80. The analysts have set the share’s price value over the next 12 months at a high of $40.00 and a low of $28.00. The average price target is 55.38% above its recent price level and an upside to the estimated low will see the stock gain 46.14% over that period. But an upside of 62.3% will see the stock hit the forecast high price target while median target price for the stock is $34.00.
Insiders at the company have transacted a total of 77 times over the past 12 months, according to data filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). 43 of these insider trades were purchases, accounting for 1,963,236 shares. Insider sales of the common stock occurred on 34 occasions, with total insider shares sold totaling 1,764,159 shares.
The top 3 mutual fund holders in Viking Therapeutics Inc are SPDR S&P Biotech ETF, Fidelity Growth Company Fund, and Vanguard Total Stock Market ETF. SPDR S&P Biotech ETF owns 4.86 million shares of the company’s stock, all valued at over $47.63 million. The company bought an additional 29013.0 shares recently to bring their total holdings to about 4.85% of the shares outstanding. Fidelity Growth Company Fund sold 20470.0 shares to see its total holdings shrink to 3.29 million shares valued at over $32.31 million and representing 3.29% of the shares outstanding. Vanguard Total Stock Market ETF bought 34100.0 shares to bring its total holdings to over 2.81 million shares at a value of $27.59 million. Vanguard Total Stock Market ETF now owns shares totaling to 2.81% of the shares outstanding.
Shares of Viking Therapeutics Inc (NASDAQ: VKTX) opened at $14.51, up $1.5 from a prior closing price of $13.01. However, the script later moved the day high at 15.56, up 15.91%. The company’s stock has a 5-day price change of 25.67% and 6.50% over the past three months. VKTX shares are trading 60.43% year to date (YTD), with the 12-month market performance up to 265.13% higher. It has a 12-month low price of $3.54 and touched a high of $25.72 over the same period. VKTX has an average intraday trading volume of 2.05 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 35.65%, 38.48%, and -0.54% respectively.
Institutional ownership of Viking Therapeutics Inc (NASDAQ: VKTX) shares accounts for 75.58% of the company’s 100.03M shares outstanding. Mutual fund holders own 41.50%, while other institutional holders and individual stakeholders account for 9.81% and 34.10% respectively.
It has a market capitalization of $1.51B and a beta (3y monthly) value of 0.43. The earnings-per-share (ttm) stands at -$0.92. Price movements for the stock have been influenced by the stock’s volatility, which stands at 7.22% over the week and 6.79% over the month.
Analysts forecast that Viking Therapeutics Inc (VKTX) will achieve an EPS of -$0.25 for the current quarter, -$0.27 for the next quarter and -$1.1 for 2024. The lowest estimate earnings-per-share for the quarter is -$0.28 while analysts give the company a high EPS estimate of -$0.22. Comparatively, EPS for the current quarter was -$0.26 a year ago. Earnings per share for the fiscal year are expected to decrease by -3.19%, and -16.82% over the next financial year. EPS should grow at an annualized rate of 40.00% over the next five years, compared to -2.56% over the past 5-year period.
Looking at the support for the VKTX, a number of firms have released research notes about the stock. ROTH MKM stated their Buy rating for the stock in a research note on May 31, 2023, with the firm’s price target at $32.
