Short Interest in Evogene Ltd. (NASDAQ:EVGN) Rises By 414.3%

Evogene Ltd. (NASDAQ:EVGN) was the recipient of a significant growth in short interest in the month of August. As of August 14th, there was short interest totaling 232,078 shares, a growth of 414.3% from the July 30th total of 45,127 shares. Approximately 2.9% of the shares of the stock are sold short. Based on an average daily volume of 994,693 shares, the short-interest ratio is presently 0.2 days.

Evogene Price Performance

Shares of EVGN traded down $0.01 on Wednesday, reaching $0.54. 16,020 shares of the stock traded hands, compared to its average volume of 920,865. The firm has a market cap of $4.74 million, a price-to-earnings ratio of -0.60 and a beta of 1.40. Evogene has a 12 month low of $0.37 and a 12 month high of $1.50. The stock’s 50-day moving average price is $0.53 and its 200-day moving average price is $0.70.

Insiders Place Their Bets

In other Evogene news, Director Leon Recanati bought 460,000 shares of Evogene stock in a transaction that occurred on Tuesday, August 11th. The stock was purchased at an average cost of $0.64 per share, for a total transaction of $294,400.00. Following the completion of the acquisition, the director owned 1,343,886 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $860,087.04. This represents a 52.04% increase in their position. The acquisition was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available through the SEC website. 7.40% of the stock is owned by company insiders.

Institutional Trading of Evogene

Several hedge funds have recently modified their holdings of the company. XTX Topco Ltd bought a new position in shares of Evogene in the fourth quarter valued at about $25,000. Jane Street Group LLC grew its holdings in Evogene by 58.0% during the 1st quarter. Jane Street Group LLC now owns 33,732 shares of the biotechnology company’s stock worth $42,000 after acquiring an additional 12,387 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Citadel Advisors LLC increased its position in Evogene by 169.4% in the 3rd quarter. Citadel Advisors LLC now owns 57,575 shares of the biotechnology company’s stock valued at $66,000 after acquiring an additional 36,206 shares in the last quarter. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 10.40% of the company’s stock.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

Separately, Weiss Ratings reiterated a “sell (e+)” rating on shares of Evogene in a research note on Wednesday, July 8th. One analyst has rated the stock with a Sell rating, According to data from MarketBeat, the company has a consensus rating of “Sell”.

About Evogene

Evogene Ltd. is a biotechnology company specializing in the use of computational and predictive biology technologies to design and develop novel products for agriculture and human health. Founded in 2002 and headquartered in Rehovot, Israel, the company has built a proprietary computational platform that integrates genomics, machine learning and data analytics to identify gene targets and biological traits. Evogene’s platform serves as the backbone for its research and development efforts, enabling the discovery of enhanced crop traits, microbial solutions and microbiome-based diagnostics and therapeutics.

In the agricultural sector, Evogene applies its platform to improve crop performance across a range of parameters, including yield enhancement, stress tolerance and resistance to pests and pathogens.