Prothena (NASDAQ:PRTA) Stock Rating Reaffirmed by Royal Bank of Canada

Prothena (NASDAQ:PRTA)‘s stock had its “sector perform” rating reiterated by equities researchers at Royal Bank of Canada in a research note issued to investors on Wednesday, Benzinga reports. They currently have a $28.00 target price on the biotechnology company’s stock. Royal Bank of Canada’s price target would indicate a potential upside of 36.39% from the company’s previous close.

A number of other research firms have also commented on PRTA. Cantor Fitzgerald restated an “overweight” rating on shares of Prothena in a research report on Wednesday, April 10th. HC Wainwright decreased their price target on Prothena from $90.00 to $84.00 and set a “buy” rating on the stock in a research report on Thursday, May 9th. Finally, JMP Securities decreased their price target on Prothena from $85.00 to $83.00 and set a “market outperform” rating on the stock in a research report on Thursday, May 9th. One equities research analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, two have assigned a hold rating and five have assigned a buy rating to the company’s stock. According to data from MarketBeat.com, Prothena has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus target price of $66.00.

Prothena Trading Up 2.9 %

PRTA stock opened at $20.53 on Wednesday. Prothena has a 1-year low of $18.69 and a 1-year high of $73.14. The firm has a market cap of $1.10 billion, a P/E ratio of -6.32 and a beta of 0.24. The business’s 50 day moving average is $21.21 and its 200-day moving average is $26.99.

Prothena (NASDAQ:PRTA) last released its quarterly earnings data on Wednesday, May 8th. The biotechnology company reported ($1.34) earnings per share for the quarter, missing the consensus estimate of ($1.21) by ($0.13). The company had revenue of $0.05 million during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $3.75 million. Prothena had a negative net margin of 193.17% and a negative return on equity of 30.48%. During the same quarter in the prior year, the company posted ($0.89) earnings per share. Sell-side analysts forecast that Prothena will post -4.69 EPS for the current year.

Institutional Inflows and Outflows

A number of large investors have recently made changes to their positions in the stock. Price T Rowe Associates Inc. MD lifted its stake in shares of Prothena by 10.9% in the 4th quarter. Price T Rowe Associates Inc. MD now owns 4,237,351 shares of the biotechnology company’s stock valued at $153,986,000 after purchasing an additional 417,338 shares during the period. Wellington Management Group LLP lifted its stake in shares of Prothena by 21.1% in the 4th quarter. Wellington Management Group LLP now owns 2,594,102 shares of the biotechnology company’s stock valued at $94,270,000 after purchasing an additional 452,455 shares during the period. Vanguard Group Inc. lifted its stake in shares of Prothena by 5.1% in the 1st quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 1,125,283 shares of the biotechnology company’s stock valued at $27,873,000 after purchasing an additional 54,728 shares during the period. Artal Group S.A. lifted its stake in shares of Prothena by 99.7% in the 1st quarter. Artal Group S.A. now owns 1,001,360 shares of the biotechnology company’s stock valued at $24,804,000 after purchasing an additional 500,000 shares during the period. Finally, Boxer Capital LLC lifted its stake in shares of Prothena by 6.4% in the 4th quarter. Boxer Capital LLC now owns 665,000 shares of the biotechnology company’s stock valued at $24,166,000 after purchasing an additional 40,000 shares during the period. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 97.08% of the company’s stock.

About Prothena

Prothena Corporation plc, a late-stage clinical biotechnology company, focuses on discovery and development of novel therapies to treat diseases caused by protein dysregulation in the United States. The company is involved in developing birtamimab, an investigational humanized antibody that is in Phase III clinical trial for the treatment of AL amyloidosis; Prasinezumab, a humanized monoclonal antibody, for the treatment of Parkinson's disease and other related synucleinopathies which is in Phase IIb clinical trial; NNC6019 that is in Phase lI clinical trial for the treatment of ATTR amyloidosis; and BMS-986446 and PRX012, which is in Phase I clinical trial for the treatment of Alzheimer's disease.