Two Seas Capital LP recently announced the acquisition of new stake in Esperion Therapeutics Inc. (NASDAQ:ESPR). The institutional investor has increased its shareholding in the Healthcare company by 160.79% to 7.67 million shares with purchase of 4.73 million shares. This fresh investment now brings its stake to 6.75% valued currently at $10.2 million. In addition, Millennium Management LLC raised its holdings by 2.45 million to 5.79 million shares. And The Vanguard Group, Inc. has lifted its position by 11.28% or 0.48 million shares – to 4.72 million shares.
With over 7.02 million Esperion Therapeutics Inc. (ESPR) shares trading Monday and a closing price of $2.80 on the day, the dollar volume was approximately $19.64 million. The shares have shown a positive half year performance of 73.91% and its price on 01/08/24 gained nearly 9.80%. Currently, there are 113.72M common shares owned by the public and among those 112.81M 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: 9 analysts who have offered their price forecasts for ESPR have a consensus price objective of $8.19. The analysts have set the share’s price value over the next 12 months at a high of $22.00 and a low of $2.50. The average price target is 65.81% above its recent price level and a downside to the estimated low will see the stock lose -12.0% over that period. But an upside of 87.27% will see the stock hit the forecast high price target while median target price for the stock is $7.00.
Insiders at the company have transacted a total of 33 times over the past 12 months, according to data filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). 17 of these insider trades were purchases, accounting for 286,561 shares. Insider sales of the common stock occurred on 16 occasions, with total insider shares sold totaling 37,542 shares.
The top 3 mutual fund holders in Esperion Therapeutics Inc. are Wasatch Ultra Growth Fund, BB Biotech AG, and Vanguard Total Stock Market ETF. Wasatch Ultra Growth Fund owns 4.68 million shares of the company’s stock, all valued at over $6.23 million. The company bought an additional 1.09 million shares recently to bring their total holdings to about 4.12% of the shares outstanding. Vanguard Total Stock Market ETF now owns shares totaling to 2.37% of the shares outstanding.
The company’s stock has a 5-day price change of -6.35% and 182.83% over the past three months. ESPR shares are trading -6.35% year to date (YTD), with the 12-month market performance down to -55.48% lower. It has a 12-month low price of $0.70 and touched a high of $7.41 over the same period. ESPR has an average intraday trading volume of 4.65 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 27.35%, 82.10%, and 98.16% respectively.
Institutional ownership of Esperion Therapeutics Inc. (NASDAQ: ESPR) shares accounts for 78.02% of the company’s 113.72M shares outstanding. Mutual fund holders own 19.94%, while other institutional holders and individual stakeholders account for 53.25% and 14.03% respectively.
It has a market capitalization of $318.42M and a beta (3y monthly) value of 0.81. The earnings-per-share (ttm) stands at -$2.37. Price movements for the stock have been influenced by the stock’s volatility, which stands at 13.89% over the week and 12.61% over the month.
Analysts forecast that Esperion Therapeutics Inc. (ESPR) will achieve an EPS of -$0.47 for the current quarter, -$0.16 for the next quarter and -$0.34 for 2024. The lowest estimate earnings-per-share for the quarter is -$0.62 while analysts give the company a high EPS estimate of -$0.34. Comparatively, EPS for the current quarter was -$0.76 a year ago. Earnings per share for the fiscal year are expected to increase by 42.93%, and 83.19% over the next financial year. EPS should grow at an annualized rate of 16.90% over the next five years, compared to 12.80% over the past 5-year period.
If you are looking to buy this stock, then you may note that the average analyst recommendation by 9 brokerage firm advisors rate Esperion Therapeutics Inc. (ESPR) as a “Strong Buy” at a consensus score of 1.67. Specifically, 6 Wall Street analysts polled rate the stock as a buy, while 3 of the 9 advise that investors “hold,” and 0 rated it as a “Sell.”
