Florida Financial Advisors LLC Takes Position in Ionis Pharmaceuticals, Inc. $IONS

Florida Financial Advisors LLC bought a new stake in Ionis Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (NASDAQ:IONS) in the 1st quarter, Holdings Channel.com reports. The firm bought 25,886 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $1,944,000.

A number of other hedge funds and other institutional investors have also bought and sold shares of the business. DAVENPORT & Co LLC raised its stake in Ionis Pharmaceuticals by 248.3% in the fourth quarter. DAVENPORT & Co LLC now owns 217,897 shares of the company’s stock valued at $17,238,000 after buying an additional 155,334 shares during the period. SG Americas Securities LLC lifted its position in shares of Ionis Pharmaceuticals by 548.7% in the fourth quarter. SG Americas Securities LLC now owns 33,409 shares of the company’s stock valued at $2,643,000 after buying an additional 28,259 shares during the last quarter. China Universal Asset Management Co. Ltd. boosted its stake in shares of Ionis Pharmaceuticals by 51.7% during the 4th quarter. China Universal Asset Management Co. Ltd. now owns 42,394 shares of the company’s stock worth $3,354,000 after acquiring an additional 14,455 shares during the period. J. Safra Sarasin Holding AG bought a new position in shares of Ionis Pharmaceuticals during the 4th quarter worth approximately $1,377,000. Finally, Franklin Resources Inc. increased its holdings in shares of Ionis Pharmaceuticals by 19,941.6% during the 4th quarter. Franklin Resources Inc. now owns 1,321,345 shares of the company’s stock worth $104,532,000 after acquiring an additional 1,314,752 shares during the last quarter. Institutional investors own 93.86% of the company’s stock.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

IONS has been the topic of a number of research analyst reports. Raymond James Financial set a $87.00 price target on Ionis Pharmaceuticals in a research note on Thursday, July 9th. Morgan Stanley reduced their price objective on shares of Ionis Pharmaceuticals from $130.00 to $110.00 and set an “overweight” rating for the company in a research report on Friday, July 10th. HC Wainwright decreased their price objective on shares of Ionis Pharmaceuticals from $130.00 to $125.00 and set a “buy” rating on the stock in a report on Friday, July 10th. Wall Street Zen raised shares of Ionis Pharmaceuticals from a “strong sell” rating to a “hold” rating in a research report on Saturday, May 2nd. Finally, Wolfe Research restated a “peer perform” rating on shares of Ionis Pharmaceuticals in a research note on Thursday, July 16th. Eighteen investment analysts have rated the stock with a Buy rating, three have assigned a Hold rating and one has given a Sell rating to the stock. Based on data from MarketBeat, Ionis Pharmaceuticals presently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average price target of $96.05.

Ionis Pharmaceuticals Price Performance

Ionis Pharmaceuticals stock opened at $52.95 on Tuesday. The firm has a market cap of $8.75 billion, a PE ratio of -25.58 and a beta of 0.36. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 2.75, a current ratio of 4.10 and a quick ratio of 4.09. The stock’s fifty day moving average price is $73.27 and its two-hundred day moving average price is $76.17. Ionis Pharmaceuticals, Inc. has a one year low of $40.03 and a one year high of $86.74.

Ionis Pharmaceuticals (NASDAQ:IONS) last posted its quarterly earnings data on Wednesday, April 29th. The company reported ($0.56) earnings per share for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of ($0.85) by $0.29. Ionis Pharmaceuticals had a negative net margin of 30.91% and a negative return on equity of 58.65%. The business had revenue of $246.09 million during the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $195.56 million. During the same quarter in the prior year, the business posted ($0.93) earnings per share. Ionis Pharmaceuticals’s revenue was up 86.4% compared to the same quarter last year. As a group, research analysts expect that Ionis Pharmaceuticals, Inc. will post -3.76 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Insider Buying and Selling at Ionis Pharmaceuticals

In other Ionis Pharmaceuticals news, EVP Eric Swayze sold 10,602 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Thursday, June 25th. The shares were sold at an average price of $79.18, for a total transaction of $839,466.36. Following the completion of the transaction, the executive vice president directly owned 21,759 shares in the company, valued at $1,722,877.62. The trade was a 32.76% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available at this link. The transaction was executed under a pre-arranged Rule 10b5-1 trading plan. Also, EVP C Frank Bennett sold 15,000 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction on Tuesday, July 7th. The stock was sold at an average price of $85.46, for a total value of $1,281,900.00. Following the sale, the executive vice president owned 75,018 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $6,411,038.28. The trade was a 16.66% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale is available in the SEC filing. The transaction was executed under a pre-arranged Rule 10b5-1 trading plan. Over the last quarter, insiders sold 233,163 shares of company stock valued at $18,316,551. 1.81% of the stock is currently owned by insiders.

Ionis Pharmaceuticals Company Profile

Ionis Pharmaceuticals, Inc is a biotechnology company focused on the discovery and development of RNA-targeted therapies designed to modulate gene expression. The company’s proprietary antisense oligonucleotide (ASO) technology enables the selective binding of short synthetic strands of nucleic acids to messenger RNA (mRNA), thereby inhibiting or altering the production of disease-causing proteins. Ionis’ pipeline spans a range of therapeutic areas, including neurological disorders, cardiovascular conditions, metabolic diseases and rare genetic disorders.

Since its founding in 1989 by Dr.