Investors Purchase High Volume of Virgin Galactic Call Options (NYSE:SPCE)

Virgin Galactic Holdings, Inc. (NYSE:SPCE – Get Rating) was the target of unusually large options trading on Monday. Traders purchased 37,997 call options on the company. This is an increase of approximately 111% compared to the typical daily volume of 18,030 call options.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

A number of equities analysts have recently issued reports on SPCE shares. Jefferies Financial Group dropped their price target on Virgin Galactic from $14.00 to $11.00 in a research report on Monday, November 7th. Wells Fargo & Company decreased their price objective on Virgin Galactic from $3.25 to $3.00 and set an “underweight” rating for the company in a research note on Monday, November 7th. Finally, Wolfe Research assumed coverage on Virgin Galactic in a research note on Monday, October 10th. They set an “underperform” rating and a $4.00 price objective for the company. Six investment analysts have rated the stock with a sell rating and four have issued a hold rating to the stock. According to MarketBeat.com, Virgin Galactic presently has a consensus rating of “Reduce” and a consensus target price of $7.58.

Virgin Galactic Stock Performance

Shares of Virgin Galactic stock opened at $3.91 on Tuesday. Virgin Galactic has a one year low of $3.24 and a one year high of $12.70. The company has a market cap of $1.07 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of -2.37 and a beta of 0.95. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.68, a quick ratio of 6.23 and a current ratio of 6.37. The business’s 50 day moving average price is $4.51 and its 200 day moving average price is $5.48.

Virgin Galactic (NYSE:SPCE – Get Rating) last announced its quarterly earnings data on Thursday, November 3rd. The company reported ($0.55) EPS for the quarter, missing analysts’ consensus estimates of ($0.40) by ($0.15). Virgin Galactic had a negative return on equity of 59.12% and a negative net margin of 27,154.61%. The company had revenue of $0.77 million for the quarter. On average, research analysts predict that Virgin Galactic will post -1.88 EPS for the current year.

Institutional Investors Weigh In On Virgin Galactic

A number of institutional investors and hedge funds have recently added to or reduced their stakes in the business. Vanguard Group Inc. raised its position in Virgin Galactic by 3.1% in the third quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 18,656,987 shares of the company’s stock valued at $87,874,000 after purchasing an additional 558,020 shares during the period. BlackRock Inc. raised its position in Virgin Galactic by 6.9% in the third quarter. BlackRock Inc. now owns 17,747,749 shares of the company’s stock valued at $83,591,000 after purchasing an additional 1,142,966 shares during the period. State Street Corp raised its position in Virgin Galactic by 11.2% in the third quarter. State Street Corp now owns 13,271,346 shares of the company’s stock valued at $62,508,000 after purchasing an additional 1,340,554 shares during the period. Northern Trust Corp raised its position in Virgin Galactic by 149.3% in the second quarter. Northern Trust Corp now owns 2,003,233 shares of the company’s stock valued at $12,060,000 after purchasing an additional 1,199,760 shares during the period. Finally, Credit Suisse AG grew its stake in shares of Virgin Galactic by 19.1% in the second quarter. Credit Suisse AG now owns 1,856,483 shares of the company’s stock valued at $11,176,000 after buying an additional 297,198 shares in the last quarter. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 32.12% of the company’s stock.

About Virgin Galactic

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Virgin Galactic Holdings, Inc focuses on the development, manufacture, and operation of spaceships and related technologies for conducting commercial human spaceflight and flying commercial research and development payloads into space. It is also involved in the ground and flight testing, and post-flight maintenance of its spaceflight system vehicles.