ACADIA Pharmaceuticals Inc. (NASDAQ:ACAD) Short Interest Up 7.5% in November

ACADIA Pharmaceuticals Inc. (NASDAQ:ACAD) was the recipient of a large growth in short interest in the month of November. As of November 15th, there was short interest totalling 10,240,000 shares, a growth of 7.5% from the October 31st total of 9,530,000 shares. Based on an average daily volume of 1,330,000 shares, the short-interest ratio is presently 7.7 days.

Wall Street Analyst Weigh In

A number of equities analysts recently issued reports on ACAD shares. Citigroup lowered their price objective on shares of ACADIA Pharmaceuticals from $30.00 to $23.00 and set a “buy” rating for the company in a research report on Thursday, August 8th. StockNews.com cut shares of ACADIA Pharmaceuticals from a “strong-buy” rating to a “buy” rating in a research report on Thursday, November 14th. Royal Bank of Canada lowered their price objective on shares of ACADIA Pharmaceuticals from $29.00 to $26.00 and set an “outperform” rating for the company in a research report on Wednesday, August 7th. Raymond James reiterated a “market perform” rating on shares of ACADIA Pharmaceuticals in a research report on Thursday, October 10th. Finally, Cantor Fitzgerald lowered their price objective on shares of ACADIA Pharmaceuticals from $37.00 to $28.00 and set an “overweight” rating for the company in a research report on Wednesday, August 7th. Six research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and twelve have issued a buy rating to the stock. According to data from MarketBeat, ACADIA Pharmaceuticals has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $25.56.

Insider Buying and Selling at ACADIA Pharmaceuticals

In other news, COO Brendan Teehan sold 10,329 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Tuesday, November 19th. The shares were sold at an average price of $16.81, for a total value of $173,630.49. Following the completion of the transaction, the chief operating officer now directly owns 62,105 shares in the company, valued at approximately $1,043,985.05. The trade was a 14.26 % decrease in their position. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which can be accessed through this hyperlink. Also, CFO Mark C. Schneyer sold 10,259 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Tuesday, November 19th. The shares were sold at an average price of $16.81, for a total transaction of $172,453.79. Following the completion of the transaction, the chief financial officer now owns 53,302 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $896,006.62. The trade was a 16.14 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders sold 24,661 shares of company stock valued at $414,551 in the last quarter. Company insiders own 28.30% of the company’s stock.

Institutional Inflows and Outflows

Several institutional investors and hedge funds have recently bought and sold shares of ACAD. Marshall Wace LLP boosted its stake in ACADIA Pharmaceuticals by 431.1% during the second quarter. Marshall Wace LLP now owns 2,774,353 shares of the biopharmaceutical company’s stock worth $45,083,000 after acquiring an additional 2,251,940 shares in the last quarter. Millennium Management LLC lifted its stake in shares of ACADIA Pharmaceuticals by 36.2% in the second quarter. Millennium Management LLC now owns 2,937,714 shares of the biopharmaceutical company’s stock valued at $47,738,000 after buying an additional 781,070 shares in the last quarter. Iron Triangle Partners LP bought a new position in shares of ACADIA Pharmaceuticals in the third quarter valued at $11,535,000. Dimensional Fund Advisors LP bought a new position in shares of ACADIA Pharmaceuticals in the second quarter valued at $10,550,000. Finally, Eventide Asset Management LLC bought a new position in shares of ACADIA Pharmaceuticals in the third quarter valued at $8,882,000. 96.71% of the stock is owned by institutional investors.

ACADIA Pharmaceuticals Stock Performance

NASDAQ:ACAD opened at $17.17 on Thursday. The firm’s fifty day moving average is $15.66 and its 200-day moving average is $16.04. ACADIA Pharmaceuticals has a 52 week low of $14.15 and a 52 week high of $32.59. The firm has a market cap of $2.86 billion, a P/E ratio of 22.01 and a beta of 0.40.

ACADIA Pharmaceuticals (NASDAQ:ACAD) last posted its quarterly earnings data on Wednesday, November 6th. The biopharmaceutical company reported $0.20 EPS for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $0.14 by $0.06. The company had revenue of $250.40 million for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $248.83 million. ACADIA Pharmaceuticals had a net margin of 13.83% and a return on equity of 25.83%. The company’s quarterly revenue was up 18.3% on a year-over-year basis. During the same period in the prior year, the firm posted ($0.40) EPS. As a group, sell-side analysts anticipate that ACADIA Pharmaceuticals will post 0.73 earnings per share for the current year.

ACADIA Pharmaceuticals Company Profile

ACADIA Pharmaceuticals Inc, a biopharmaceutical company, focuses on the development and commercialization innovative medicines that address unmet medical needs in central nervous system (CNS) disorders and rare diseases in the United States. The company offers NUPLAZID (pimavanserin) for the treatment of hallucinations and delusions associated with Parkinson's disease psychosis; and DAYBUE, a novel synthetic analog of the amino-terminal tripeptide of insulin-like growth factor 1 for treatment of Rett Syndrome.