Atea Pharmaceuticals (NASDAQ:AVIR) Trading Down 2% – Time to Sell?

Atea Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (NASDAQ:AVIR)’s stock price traded down 2% on Thursday . The stock traded as low as $3.98 and last traded at $4.02. 513,477 shares traded hands during trading, a decline of 4% from the average session volume of 532,669 shares. The stock had previously closed at $4.10.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

A number of analysts have recently weighed in on the company. Evercore ISI raised Atea Pharmaceuticals to a “strong-buy” rating in a research report on Friday, November 28th. Weiss Ratings reiterated a “sell (d-)” rating on shares of Atea Pharmaceuticals in a report on Wednesday, January 21st. One investment analyst has rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, one has assigned a Buy rating, one has assigned a Hold rating and one has assigned a Sell rating to the company’s stock. According to MarketBeat, the stock has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average price target of $6.00.

Atea Pharmaceuticals Stock Performance

The firm has a 50 day moving average price of $3.50 and a 200-day moving average price of $3.34. The company has a market cap of $314.07 million, a P/E ratio of -2.27 and a beta of 0.24.

Atea Pharmaceuticals (NASDAQ:AVIR) last issued its quarterly earnings data on Wednesday, November 12th. The company reported ($0.53) earnings per share for the quarter, missing the consensus estimate of ($0.46) by ($0.07). On average, sell-side analysts forecast that Atea Pharmaceuticals, Inc. will post -2.01 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Institutional Trading of Atea Pharmaceuticals

Several large investors have recently bought and sold shares of AVIR. Prudential Financial Inc. bought a new position in Atea Pharmaceuticals in the 2nd quarter valued at approximately $36,000. RFG Advisory LLC purchased a new position in shares of Atea Pharmaceuticals in the 4th quarter worth approximately $53,000. Johnson Investment Counsel Inc. purchased a new position in Atea Pharmaceuticals in the second quarter worth $55,000. BNP Paribas Financial Markets grew its stake in Atea Pharmaceuticals by 57.7% in the 3rd quarter. BNP Paribas Financial Markets now owns 19,913 shares of the company’s stock valued at $58,000 after buying an additional 7,286 shares in the last quarter. Finally, SG Americas Securities LLC bought a new stake in shares of Atea Pharmaceuticals during the third quarter valued at about $59,000. 86.67% of the stock is owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

About Atea Pharmaceuticals

Atea Pharmaceuticals, Inc is a clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company focused on the discovery and development of oral antiviral therapeutics targeting RNA viruses. The company’s lead program, AT-527, is a direct-acting nucleotide prodrug licensed from Roche and is being evaluated as a potential treatment for coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19). In addition to its COVID-19 efforts, Atea’s pipeline includes other small-molecule candidates for hepatitis C virus and emerging RNA pathogens, leveraging its proprietary nucleotide chemistry platform to address significant unmet medical needs in infectious diseases.

Founded in 2014 and headquartered in Cambridge, Massachusetts, Atea operates research laboratories in the Greater Boston area and conducts clinical studies across North America, Europe and parts of Asia.