Traders Purchase Large Volume of Novavax Call Options (NASDAQ:NVAX)

Novavax, Inc. (NASDAQ:NVAX) saw some unusual options trading on Monday. Stock investors purchased 21,020 call options on the stock. This is an increase of approximately 71% compared to the typical daily volume of 12,273 call options.

Institutional Trading of Novavax

A number of large investors have recently added to or reduced their stakes in the company. Vanguard Group Inc. increased its stake in Novavax by 1.8% in the 4th quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 15,470,365 shares of the biopharmaceutical company’s stock worth $103,961,000 after acquiring an additional 275,802 shares during the last quarter. Shah Capital Management boosted its holdings in shares of Novavax by 23.3% in the 4th quarter. Shah Capital Management now owns 14,558,780 shares of the biopharmaceutical company’s stock worth $97,835,000 after purchasing an additional 2,747,000 shares during the period. State Street Corp boosted its holdings in shares of Novavax by 32.3% in the 4th quarter. State Street Corp now owns 9,523,646 shares of the biopharmaceutical company’s stock worth $63,999,000 after purchasing an additional 2,326,927 shares during the period. UBS Group AG boosted its holdings in shares of Novavax by 40.3% in the 4th quarter. UBS Group AG now owns 4,894,284 shares of the biopharmaceutical company’s stock worth $32,890,000 after purchasing an additional 1,405,981 shares during the period. Finally, Bank of America Corp DE boosted its holdings in shares of Novavax by 0.5% in the 3rd quarter. Bank of America Corp DE now owns 3,101,074 shares of the biopharmaceutical company’s stock worth $26,886,000 after purchasing an additional 15,685 shares during the period. Institutional investors own 53.04% of the company’s stock.

Novavax Price Performance

NASDAQ:NVAX opened at $7.97 on Tuesday. Novavax has a 1 year low of $5.01 and a 1 year high of $11.97. The stock’s 50 day simple moving average is $9.24 and its two-hundred day simple moving average is $8.26. The company has a market cap of $1.30 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 3.31 and a beta of 2.65.

Novavax (NASDAQ:NVAX) last released its quarterly earnings data on Thursday, February 26th. The biopharmaceutical company reported $0.11 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, topping analysts’ consensus estimates of ($0.66) by $0.77. Novavax had a negative return on equity of 673.17% and a net margin of 39.19%.The business had revenue of $136.40 million for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $90.26 million. During the same quarter in the previous year, the company posted ($0.51) EPS. The company’s revenue was up 66.6% compared to the same quarter last year. As a group, analysts anticipate that Novavax will post -1.46 EPS for the current year.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

Several brokerages recently issued reports on NVAX. Wall Street Zen raised Novavax from a “sell” rating to a “hold” rating in a research note on Saturday, February 28th. Weiss Ratings raised Novavax from a “sell (d+)” rating to a “hold (c-)” rating in a research note on Thursday, March 12th. Jefferies Financial Group reissued a “buy” rating on shares of Novavax in a research note on Thursday, March 12th. HC Wainwright lifted their target price on Novavax from $11.00 to $16.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a research note on Friday, February 27th. Finally, BTIG Research reaffirmed a “buy” rating and issued a $19.00 price objective on shares of Novavax in a research note on Tuesday, January 20th. Five equities research analysts have rated the stock with a Buy rating, two have issued a Hold rating and three have given a Sell rating to the company’s stock. According to MarketBeat.com, Novavax currently has a consensus rating of “Hold” and a consensus price target of $11.88.

Novavax Company Profile

Novavax, Inc is a clinical-stage biotechnology company headquartered in Gaithersburg, Maryland, that specializes in the discovery, development and commercialization of next-generation vaccines to prevent serious infectious diseases. Founded in 1987, the company has built a platform based on recombinant nanoparticle technology and its proprietary Matrix-M™ adjuvant to enhance immune responses.

The company’s lead product is NVX-CoV2373, a protein-based vaccine designed to elicit a robust immune response against the SARS-CoV-2 virus.