Nkarta (NASDAQ:NKTX) Rating Lowered to Sell at Wall Street Zen

Nkarta (NASDAQ:NKTX) was downgraded by Wall Street Zen from a “hold” rating to a “sell” rating in a note issued to investors on Saturday.

NKTX has been the subject of a number of other reports. Needham & Company LLC raised their target price on shares of Nkarta from $10.00 to $11.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a report on Thursday. Weiss Ratings reiterated a “sell (d-)” rating on shares of Nkarta in a research report on Monday, December 29th. Three equities research analysts have rated the stock with a Buy rating, one has issued a Hold rating and one has issued a Sell rating to the company. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, the company currently has a consensus rating of “Hold” and an average target price of $12.00.

Nkarta Price Performance

Shares of NKTX opened at $2.06 on Friday. Nkarta has a 1 year low of $1.42 and a 1 year high of $2.81. The company has a 50 day simple moving average of $2.28 and a two-hundred day simple moving average of $2.10. The firm has a market cap of $153.04 million, a P/E ratio of -1.47 and a beta of 0.47.

Nkarta (NASDAQ:NKTX) last announced its quarterly earnings results on Wednesday, March 25th. The company reported ($0.37) EPS for the quarter, missing the consensus estimate of ($0.32) by ($0.05). On average, sell-side analysts anticipate that Nkarta will post -1.7 earnings per share for the current year.

Insider Activity

In related news, CEO Paul J. Hastings sold 26,046 shares of the stock in a transaction that occurred 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 transaction, 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 ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which is accessible through this link. Corporate insiders own 8.40% of the company’s stock.

Institutional Trading of Nkarta

Several hedge funds have recently made changes to their positions in NKTX. Peapod Lane Capital LLC lifted its stake in Nkarta by 0.7% in the fourth quarter. Peapod Lane Capital LLC now owns 676,199 shares of the company’s stock worth $1,251,000 after acquiring an additional 4,933 shares during the last quarter. SG Americas Securities LLC lifted its position in Nkarta by 35.0% during the 3rd quarter. SG Americas Securities LLC now owns 23,663 shares of the company’s stock worth $49,000 after acquiring an additional 6,141 shares during the period. BNP Paribas Financial Markets boosted its holdings in shares of Nkarta by 4.0% in the second quarter. BNP Paribas Financial Markets now owns 231,081 shares of the company’s stock valued at $384,000 after acquiring an additional 8,968 shares in the last quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC lifted its holdings in shares of Nkarta by 0.8% in the 2nd quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC now owns 1,208,378 shares of the company’s stock valued at $2,006,000 after buying an additional 10,065 shares during the period. Finally, Samalin Investment Counsel LLC boosted its position in shares of Nkarta by 7.2% during the 4th quarter. Samalin Investment Counsel LLC now owns 150,235 shares of the company’s stock worth $278,000 after purchasing an additional 10,070 shares in the last quarter. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 80.54% of the company’s stock.

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.