Prothena Co. plc (NASDAQ:PRTA) Receives Consensus Rating of "Moderate Buy" from Analysts

Prothena Co. plc (NASDAQ:PRTA - Get Free Report) has earned a consensus recommendation of "Moderate Buy" from the seven ratings firms that are currently covering the stock, Marketbeat Ratings reports. Two equities research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and five have issued a buy rating on the company. The average 12-month target price among brokers that have updated their coverage on the stock in the last year is $62.86.

PRTA has been the subject of a number of analyst reports. Royal Bank of Canada lowered their price objective on Prothena from $28.00 to $24.00 and set a "sector perform" rating for the company in a research report on Friday, August 9th. Oppenheimer lowered their price target on shares of Prothena from $66.00 to $62.00 and set an "outperform" rating for the company in a report on Wednesday, August 14th. Cantor Fitzgerald restated an "overweight" rating on shares of Prothena in a report on Monday, August 12th. Finally, StockNews.com upgraded shares of Prothena from a "sell" rating to a "hold" rating in a research note on Monday, August 12th.

Institutional Investors Weigh In On Prothena

Several hedge funds have recently made changes to their positions in PRTA. Boxer Capital LLC raised its position in Prothena by 6.4% in the fourth quarter. Boxer Capital LLC now owns 665,000 shares of the biotechnology company's stock worth $24,166,000 after acquiring an additional 40,000 shares in the last quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. boosted its holdings in Prothena by 5.1% during the first quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 1,125,283 shares of the biotechnology company's stock worth $27,873,000 after buying an additional 54,728 shares in the last quarter. Armistice Capital LLC purchased a new position in Prothena in the fourth quarter valued at about $10,103,000. Price T Rowe Associates Inc. MD boosted its position in Prothena by 10.9% during the fourth quarter. Price T Rowe Associates Inc. MD now owns 4,237,351 shares of the biotechnology company's stock worth $153,986,000 after purchasing an additional 417,338 shares in the last quarter. Finally, SG Americas Securities LLC grew its holdings in Prothena by 226.4% in the second quarter. SG Americas Securities LLC now owns 54,572 shares of the biotechnology company's stock valued at $1,126,000 after purchasing an additional 37,852 shares during the last quarter. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 97.08% of the company's stock.

Prothena Stock Performance

Shares of Prothena stock traded up $0.39 on Monday, reaching $22.00. The company had a trading volume of 436,443 shares, compared to its average volume of 583,948. The firm's 50 day moving average price is $21.78 and its two-hundred day moving average price is $22.17. Prothena has a 52-week low of $18.69 and a 52-week high of $55.89. The firm has a market cap of $1.18 billion, a PE ratio of -6.65 and a beta of 0.18.

Prothena (NASDAQ:PRTA - Get Free Report) last released its quarterly earnings results on Thursday, August 8th. The biotechnology company reported $1.22 EPS for the quarter, topping analysts' consensus estimates of ($1.01) by $2.23. The company had revenue of $132.01 million for the quarter, compared to analysts' expectations of $10.73 million. Prothena had a negative return on equity of 9.00% and a negative net margin of 23.44%. The firm's revenue was up 3184.7% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same period in the prior year, the firm earned ($1.03) earnings per share. As a group, sell-side analysts predict that Prothena will post -2.31 EPS for the current year.

Prothena Company Profile

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.