Intellia Therapeutics Target of Unusually High Options Trading (NASDAQ:NTLA)

Intellia Therapeutics, Inc. (NASDAQ:NTLA) saw unusually large options trading activity on Wednesday. Stock traders acquired 4,349 call options on the company. This is an increase of approximately 32% compared to the typical daily volume of 3,291 call options.

Hedge Funds Weigh In On Intellia Therapeutics

Several institutional investors have recently bought and sold shares of NTLA. Contrarius Group Holdings Ltd boosted its position in shares of Intellia Therapeutics by 279.4% during the 3rd quarter. Contrarius Group Holdings Ltd now owns 5,889,936 shares of the company’s stock worth $101,719,000 after purchasing an additional 4,337,428 shares in the last quarter. ARK Investment Management LLC boosted its position in shares of Intellia Therapeutics by 19.2% during the 4th quarter. ARK Investment Management LLC now owns 14,207,324 shares of the company’s stock worth $127,724,000 after purchasing an additional 2,288,146 shares in the last quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. boosted its position in shares of Intellia Therapeutics by 17.8% during the 4th quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 13,010,001 shares of the company’s stock worth $116,960,000 after purchasing an additional 1,965,181 shares in the last quarter. State Street Corp boosted its position in shares of Intellia Therapeutics by 29.1% during the 4th quarter. State Street Corp now owns 6,418,836 shares of the company’s stock worth $57,705,000 after purchasing an additional 1,447,967 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Arrowstreet Capital Limited Partnership purchased a new stake in shares of Intellia Therapeutics during the 1st quarter worth $17,913,000. 88.77% of the stock is owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

A number of equities analysts have recently commented on the stock. The Goldman Sachs Group lifted their target price on shares of Intellia Therapeutics from $8.00 to $9.00 and gave the company a “sell” rating in a report on Tuesday, April 28th. Wedbush reaffirmed a “neutral” rating and issued a $12.00 target price on shares of Intellia Therapeutics in a report on Monday. Citigroup reaffirmed a “market outperform” rating on shares of Intellia Therapeutics in a report on Monday. Robert W. Baird lifted their target price on shares of Intellia Therapeutics from $7.00 to $13.00 and gave the company a “neutral” rating in a report on Monday, April 27th. Finally, reaffirmed a “buy” rating on shares of Intellia Therapeutics in a report on Tuesday, March 3rd. One research analyst has rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, nine have issued a Buy rating, ten have issued a Hold rating and three have assigned a Sell rating to the company. Based on data from MarketBeat, the company has an average rating of “Hold” and an average target price of $20.46.

Intellia Therapeutics Stock Performance

NTLA traded up $1.66 during trading on Wednesday, hitting $16.21. The stock had a trading volume of 5,492,489 shares, compared to its average volume of 5,648,091. The firm has a market capitalization of $2.26 billion, a P/E ratio of -4.58 and a beta of 1.92. The company’s 50-day moving average price is $13.66 and its 200 day moving average price is $12.41. Intellia Therapeutics has a twelve month low of $7.95 and a twelve month high of $28.25.

Intellia Therapeutics (NASDAQ:NTLA) last announced its quarterly earnings data on Monday, May 11th. The company reported ($0.81) earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of ($0.92) by $0.11. The company had revenue of $15.05 million for the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $13.81 million. Intellia Therapeutics had a negative net margin of 597.04% and a negative return on equity of 57.47%. During the same period in the previous year, the company posted ($1.10) EPS. As a group, equities analysts expect that Intellia Therapeutics will post -3.18 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

About Intellia Therapeutics

Intellia Therapeutics, Inc (NASDAQ: NTLA) is a clinical‐stage biotechnology company focused on developing potentially curative genome editing therapies using the CRISPR/Cas9 platform. The company’s research spans both in vivo and ex vivo applications of CRISPR/Cas9, aiming to correct or disable disease‐causing genes with a single administration. Intellia’s lead in vivo program targets transthyretin amyloidosis (ATTR) by delivering CRISPR/Cas9 machinery directly to the liver, while additional preclinical efforts pursue treatments for hemophilia A, hereditary angioedema and other genetic disorders.

Beyond its in vivo pipeline, Intellia collaborates with strategic partners to extend the impact of its genome editing approach.