Short Interest in Aptose Biosciences Inc. (NASDAQ:APTO) Drops By 56.6%

Aptose Biosciences Inc. (NASDAQ:APTO) (TSE:APS) was the target of a large drop in short interest in March. As of March 15th, there was short interest totalling 53,200 shares, a drop of 56.6% from the February 28th total of 122,600 shares. Currently, 3.3% of the shares of the stock are short sold. Based on an average trading volume of 395,000 shares, the short-interest ratio is currently 0.1 days.

Aptose Biosciences Price Performance

APTO opened at $3.32 on Friday. Aptose Biosciences has a fifty-two week low of $2.39 and a fifty-two week high of $51.61. The company’s 50 day moving average price is $4.57 and its two-hundred day moving average price is $7.52. The firm has a market capitalization of $7.11 million, a price-to-earnings ratio of -1.12 and a beta of 1.14.

Wall Street Analyst Weigh In

Several brokerages have commented on APTO. HC Wainwright boosted their price objective on shares of Aptose Biosciences from $2.00 to $6.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a research report on Friday. StockNews.com initiated coverage on Aptose Biosciences in a report on Thursday. They set a “sell” rating for the company. Finally, Alliance Global Partners upgraded Aptose Biosciences to a “strong-buy” rating in a research report on Thursday, February 27th. One equities research analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, three have given a buy rating and one has assigned a strong buy rating to the stock. According to MarketBeat, the stock presently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus price target of $112.00.

Institutional Trading of Aptose Biosciences

A hedge fund recently raised its stake in Aptose Biosciences stock. Sigma Planning Corp raised its position in Aptose Biosciences Inc. (NASDAQ:APTO) (TSE:APS) by 75.1% during the fourth quarter, according to its most recent filing with the SEC. The firm owned 703,384 shares of the biotechnology company’s stock after purchasing an additional 301,634 shares during the period. Sigma Planning Corp owned 1.17% of Aptose Biosciences worth $158,000 as of its most recent filing with the SEC. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 26.62% of the company’s stock.

About Aptose Biosciences

Aptose Biosciences Inc, a clinical-stage biotechnology company, discovers and develops personalized therapies addressing unmet medical needs in oncology in Canada. Its lead clinical program is APTO-253, which is a Phase I clinical trial for the treatment of patients with relapsed or refractory hematologic malignancies.