Aptevo Therapeutics Inc. (NASDAQ:APVO) Short Interest Up 18.8% in March

Aptevo Therapeutics Inc. (NASDAQ:APVO) was the target of a large growth in short interest in March. As of March 31st, there was short interest totaling 133,103 shares, a growth of 18.8% from the March 15th total of 112,000 shares. Currently, 11.3% of the shares of the stock are short sold. Based on an average daily volume of 53,580 shares, the days-to-cover ratio is presently 2.5 days.

Aptevo Therapeutics Stock Up 4.1%

NASDAQ APVO opened at $5.61 on Friday. The stock has a market cap of $6.62 million, a price-to-earnings ratio of 0.00 and a beta of 1.50. The business has a fifty day moving average of $5.53 and a 200-day moving average of $14.66. Aptevo Therapeutics has a fifty-two week low of $3.80 and a fifty-two week high of $486.00.

Aptevo Therapeutics (NASDAQ:APVO) last released its earnings results on Friday, March 27th. The biotechnology company reported $118.23 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of ($8.10) by $126.33. As a group, analysts anticipate that Aptevo Therapeutics will post -15.84 EPS for the current year.

Institutional Investors Weigh In On Aptevo Therapeutics

A hedge fund recently bought a new stake in Aptevo Therapeutics stock. Virtu Financial LLC acquired a new stake in shares of Aptevo Therapeutics Inc. (NASDAQ:APVO) in the third quarter, according to the company in its most recent disclosure with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The institutional investor acquired 38,282 shares of the biotechnology company’s stock, valued at approximately $56,000. Virtu Financial LLC owned about 1.16% of Aptevo Therapeutics at the end of the most recent reporting period. 8.06% of the stock is currently owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

Analyst Ratings Changes

A number of equities research analysts have recently issued reports on the stock. Weiss Ratings reiterated a “sell (e)” rating on shares of Aptevo Therapeutics in a research report on Monday, December 29th. Wall Street Zen upgraded Aptevo Therapeutics from a “sell” rating to a “hold” rating in a research report on Sunday, March 29th. One investment analyst has rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, one has assigned a Hold rating and one has given a Sell rating to the company. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, the stock currently has an average rating of “Hold”.

About Aptevo Therapeutics

Aptevo Therapeutics, Inc is a clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company headquartered in Seattle, Washington, focused on the discovery and development of novel immunotherapies for oncology and autoimmune diseases. Founded in 2012 as a spin-off from Emergent BioSolutions, the company builds on expertise in protein engineering and translational research to create targeted biologics that engage the body’s immune system.

The company’s core technologies include the ADAPTIR platform, which enables the design of bispecific and multispecific protein scaffolds with customizable binding domains, and the KNOCKOUT platform, which incorporates non-natural amino acids to enhance therapeutic properties such as stability and half-life.