Nkarta, Inc. (NASDAQ:NKTX) Receives Average Rating of “Moderate Buy” from Analysts

Nkarta, Inc. (NASDAQ:NKTX) has received a consensus recommendation of “Moderate Buy” from the six research firms that are currently covering the company, MarketBeat.com reports. One equities research analyst has rated the stock with a sell recommendation, one has given a hold recommendation and four have issued a buy recommendation on the company. The average 12 month target price among brokerages that have covered the stock in the last year is $13.25.

A number of brokerages have recently issued reports on NKTX. Weiss Ratings reissued a “sell (d-)” rating on shares of Nkarta in a research note on Monday, December 29th. Stifel Nicolaus lowered their price objective on shares of Nkarta from $12.00 to $11.00 and set a “buy” rating for the company in a research report on Tuesday, November 11th. Finally, Wall Street Zen upgraded shares of Nkarta from a “sell” rating to a “hold” rating in a research note on Saturday, December 20th.

Nkarta Stock Performance

Shares of NASDAQ NKTX opened at $1.97 on Friday. Nkarta has a fifty-two week low of $1.31 and a fifty-two week high of $2.74. The company has a market cap of $139.93 million, a price-to-earnings ratio of -1.43 and a beta of 0.54. The business’s 50 day moving average price is $2.01 and its 200-day moving average price is $2.06.

Insider Buying and Selling

In other Nkarta news, CEO Paul J. Hastings sold 26,046 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction on Thursday, January 15th. The stock was sold at an average price of $2.07, for a total value of $53,915.22. Following the completion of the sale, the chief executive officer directly owned 390,023 shares in the company, valued at approximately $807,347.61. This represents a 6.26% decrease in their position. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which can be accessed through this hyperlink. 8.40% of the stock is owned by insiders.

Institutional Trading of Nkarta

Institutional investors and hedge funds have recently made changes to their positions in the company. Savant Capital LLC bought a new position in Nkarta during the 2nd quarter worth about $36,000. Dynamic Technology Lab Private Ltd purchased a new stake in shares of Nkarta in the 4th quarter worth approximately $37,000. SG Americas Securities LLC boosted its stake in shares of Nkarta by 35.0% during the third quarter. SG Americas Securities LLC now owns 23,663 shares of the company’s stock valued at $49,000 after purchasing an additional 6,141 shares in the last quarter. CWM LLC increased its holdings in Nkarta by 23.4% during the second quarter. CWM LLC now owns 34,758 shares of the company’s stock valued at $58,000 after buying an additional 6,601 shares during the period. Finally, Bailard Inc. purchased a new position in Nkarta during the third quarter valued at approximately $61,000. 80.54% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors.

About Nkarta

Nkarta, Inc is a clinical-stage biotechnology company specializing in the development of off-the-shelf natural killer (NK) cell therapies for the treatment of cancer. Leveraging proprietary activation and expansion technologies, Nkarta aims to harness the innate tumor-killing properties of NK cells while incorporating targeted immuno-engineering approaches to enhance safety, potency and persistence in patients. The company’s platform supports both allogeneic cell manufacturing and genetic modifications to generate chimeric antigen receptor-expressing NK cell candidates designed to address a range of hematologic and solid tumors.

Nkarta’s lead program, NKX019, is an anti-CD19 CAR-NK cell therapy in early-phase clinical trials for relapsed or refractory B-cell malignancies.