Needham & Company LLC Reiterates “Buy” Rating for Ionis Pharmaceuticals (NASDAQ:IONS)

Needham & Company LLC restated their buy rating on shares of Ionis Pharmaceuticals (NASDAQ:IONS) in a research report sent to investors on Wednesday morning, Benzinga reports. They currently have a $60.00 target price on the stock.

Several other equities analysts also recently commented on IONS. Piper Sandler upped their price objective on Ionis Pharmaceuticals from $62.00 to $63.00 and gave the company an overweight rating in a research report on Thursday, February 22nd. StockNews.com raised Ionis Pharmaceuticals from a sell rating to a hold rating in a research report on Saturday, February 24th. Royal Bank of Canada upped their price objective on Ionis Pharmaceuticals from $65.00 to $70.00 and gave the company an outperform rating in a research report on Friday, January 26th. Wolfe Research raised Ionis Pharmaceuticals from a peer perform rating to an outperform rating and set a $58.00 price objective on the stock in a research report on Wednesday, April 10th. Finally, Oppenheimer upped their target price on Ionis Pharmaceuticals from $72.00 to $75.00 and gave the stock an outperform rating in a report on Tuesday, April 9th. One investment analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, four have issued a hold rating, nine have issued a buy rating and one has assigned a strong buy rating to the stock. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, the stock presently has an average rating of Moderate Buy and a consensus target price of $59.54.

Ionis Pharmaceuticals Trading Down 1.0 %

Shares of Ionis Pharmaceuticals stock traded down $0.39 on Wednesday, reaching $39.77. The company had a trading volume of 96,397 shares, compared to its average volume of 1,109,811. The firm has a market cap of $5.80 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of -15.69 and a beta of 0.41. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 3.18, a current ratio of 5.90 and a quick ratio of 5.83. The firm’s 50-day moving average price is $42.74 and its two-hundred day moving average price is $46.87. Ionis Pharmaceuticals has a 1 year low of $34.99 and a 1 year high of $54.44.

Ionis Pharmaceuticals (NASDAQ:IONS) last posted its quarterly earnings data on Tuesday, May 7th. The company reported ($0.98) earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of ($1.10) by $0.12. The company had revenue of $119.00 million during the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $131.42 million. Ionis Pharmaceuticals had a negative return on equity of 90.29% and a negative net margin of 46.32%. Ionis Pharmaceuticals’s revenue was down 9.2% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same quarter in the previous year, the business earned ($0.87) EPS. As a group, research analysts predict that Ionis Pharmaceuticals will post -3.76 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Insider Buying and Selling

In other Ionis Pharmaceuticals news, EVP Joseph Baroldi sold 4,006 shares of the stock in a transaction dated Tuesday, April 16th. The stock was sold at an average price of $41.60, for a total value of $166,649.60. Following the completion of the sale, the executive vice president now directly owns 19,631 shares in the company, valued at $816,649.60. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which is available at this link. In other Ionis Pharmaceuticals news, EVP Joseph Baroldi sold 4,006 shares of the stock in a transaction dated Tuesday, April 16th. The stock was sold at an average price of $41.60, for a total value of $166,649.60. Following the completion of the sale, the executive vice president now directly owns 19,631 shares in the company, valued at $816,649.60. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which is available at this link. Also, Director Joseph Klein III sold 6,000 shares of the stock in a transaction dated Friday, May 3rd. The shares were sold at an average price of $42.71, for a total value of $256,260.00. Following the completion of the sale, the director now owns 16,346 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $698,137.66. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders sold 10,393 shares of company stock worth $440,127 in the last three months. 2.65% of the stock is owned by insiders.

Institutional Inflows and Outflows

A number of hedge funds have recently modified their holdings of the company. Wellington Management Group LLP increased its holdings in shares of Ionis Pharmaceuticals by 162.2% in the fourth quarter. Wellington Management Group LLP now owns 4,616,978 shares of the company’s stock valued at $233,573,000 after purchasing an additional 2,856,353 shares during the period. Charles Schwab Investment Management Inc. increased its holdings in shares of Ionis Pharmaceuticals by 2.7% in the fourth quarter. Charles Schwab Investment Management Inc. now owns 1,275,319 shares of the company’s stock valued at $64,518,000 after purchasing an additional 33,012 shares during the period. Norges Bank acquired a new position in shares of Ionis Pharmaceuticals in the fourth quarter valued at about $59,288,000. Adage Capital Partners GP L.L.C. acquired a new position in shares of Ionis Pharmaceuticals in the third quarter valued at about $48,399,000. Finally, TD Asset Management Inc increased its holdings in shares of Ionis Pharmaceuticals by 6.5% in the fourth quarter. TD Asset Management Inc now owns 956,852 shares of the company’s stock valued at $48,407,000 after purchasing an additional 58,000 shares during the period. 93.86% of the stock is owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

Ionis Pharmaceuticals Company Profile

Ionis Pharmaceuticals, Inc discovers and develops RNA-targeted therapeutics in the United States. The company offers SPINRAZA for spinal muscular atrophy (SMA) in pediatric and adult patients; TEGSEDI, an antisense injection for the treatment of polyneuropathy caused by hereditary transthyretin amyloidosis in adults; and WAYLIVRA, an antisense medicine for treatment for familial chylomicronemia syndrome (FCS) and familial partial lipodystrophy.