Valneva (NASDAQ:VALN) Shares Gap Up - Time to Buy?

Valneva SE (NASDAQ:VALN - Get Free Report)'s stock price gapped up before the market opened on Tuesday . The stock had previously closed at $7.00, but opened at $7.48. Valneva shares last traded at $7.54, with a volume of 18,726 shares trading hands.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

Separately, HC Wainwright reissued a "buy" rating and set a $18.00 target price on shares of Valneva in a research report on Friday, January 31st.

Valneva Stock Down 13.8 %

The firm's 50-day moving average price is $4.87 and its 200 day moving average price is $5.67. The company has a quick ratio of 2.25, a current ratio of 2.78 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.70. The firm has a market cap of $545.66 million, a P/E ratio of -51.65 and a beta of 1.98.

Institutional Investors Weigh In On Valneva

Several hedge funds and other institutional investors have recently added to or reduced their stakes in VALN. Wells Fargo & Company MN raised its holdings in Valneva by 14.3% during the 4th quarter. Wells Fargo & Company MN now owns 246,766 shares of the company's stock worth $1,079,000 after buying an additional 30,859 shares during the period. ABC Arbitrage SA purchased a new stake in shares of Valneva during the 4th quarter worth about $84,000. Finally, AlphaCentric Advisors LLC lifted its holdings in shares of Valneva by 33.7% during the 3rd quarter. AlphaCentric Advisors LLC now owns 118,000 shares of the company's stock valued at $717,000 after buying an additional 29,748 shares during the last quarter. Institutional investors own 11.39% of the company's stock.

About Valneva

Valneva SE, a specialty vaccine company, develops, manufactures, and commercializes prophylactic vaccines for infectious diseases with unmet needs. It offers IXIARO, an inactivated Vero cell culture-derived Japanese encephalitis vaccine indicated for active immunization against Japanese encephalitis; DUKORAL, an oral vaccine for the prevention of diarrhea caused by Vibrio cholera and/or heat-labile toxin producing enterotoxigenic Escherichia coli bacterium; IXCHIQ, a single-dose, live-attenuated vaccine for the prevention of disease caused by chikungunya virus; and VLA2001, an inactivated whole-virus COVID-19 vaccine.