Ascendis Pharma A/S Target of Unusually Large Options Trading (NASDAQ:ASND)

Posted by Defense World Staff on Apr 12th, 2023

Ascendis Pharma A/S (NASDAQ:ASND – Get Rating) was the recipient of some unusual options trading on Tuesday. Stock investors acquired 4,959 put options on the company. This represents an increase of approximately 738% compared to the average daily volume of 592 put options.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

Several equities analysts recently issued reports on ASND shares. Oppenheimer lowered shares of Ascendis Pharma A/S from an “outperform” rating to a “market perform” rating in a report on Wednesday, April 5th. StockNews.com initiated coverage on shares of Ascendis Pharma A/S in a research report on Thursday, March 16th. They set a “sell” rating for the company. Wells Fargo & Company increased their price objective on shares of Ascendis Pharma A/S from $169.00 to $177.00 and gave the stock an “overweight” rating in a report on Tuesday, January 3rd. Bank of America dropped their price target on shares of Ascendis Pharma A/S from $132.00 to $92.00 and set a “buy” rating on the stock in a research report on Monday, April 3rd. Finally, Credit Suisse Group cut Ascendis Pharma A/S from an “outperform” rating to a “neutral” rating in a report on Monday, April 3rd. One equities research analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, three have assigned a hold rating and eight have issued a buy rating to the stock. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, Ascendis Pharma A/S has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average price target of $148.82.

Ascendis Pharma A/S Price Performance

Shares of ASND stock opened at $80.18 on Wednesday. Ascendis Pharma A/S has a 52-week low of $61.58 and a 52-week high of $134.52. The stock has a 50 day moving average price of $106.46 and a 200 day moving average price of $112.83. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.83, a quick ratio of 4.63 and a current ratio of 5.39. The firm has a market capitalization of $4.58 billion, a P/E ratio of -7.39 and a beta of 0.55.

Ascendis Pharma A/S (NASDAQ:ASND – Get Rating) last announced its quarterly earnings results on Thursday, February 16th. The biotechnology company reported ($3.78) earnings per share for the quarter, missing analysts’ consensus estimates of ($2.50) by ($1.28). The company had revenue of $23.38 million for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $20.31 million. Ascendis Pharma A/S had a negative net margin of 1,149.60% and a negative return on equity of 114.11%. As a group, sell-side analysts predict that Ascendis Pharma A/S will post -10.96 earnings per share for the current year.

Institutional Trading of Ascendis Pharma A/S

Institutional investors and hedge funds have recently made changes to their positions in the stock. Quadrant Capital Group LLC lifted its position in shares of Ascendis Pharma A/S by 59.4% in the 3rd quarter. Quadrant Capital Group LLC now owns 279 shares of the biotechnology company’s stock valued at $29,000 after acquiring an additional 104 shares in the last quarter. Envestnet Asset Management Inc. raised its position in Ascendis Pharma A/S by 3.4% in the 3rd quarter. Envestnet Asset Management Inc. now owns 3,226 shares of the biotechnology company’s stock valued at $333,000 after purchasing an additional 105 shares during the last quarter. Guggenheim Capital LLC raised its position in shares of Ascendis Pharma A/S by 7.2% during the first quarter. Guggenheim Capital LLC now owns 2,008 shares of the biotechnology company’s stock worth $236,000 after acquiring an additional 135 shares during the last quarter. Nelson Van Denburg & Campbell Wealth Management Group LLC raised its position in shares of Ascendis Pharma A/S by 2.5% in the 4th quarter. Nelson Van Denburg & Campbell Wealth Management Group LLC now owns 5,529 shares of the biotechnology company’s stock valued at $675,000 after acquiring an additional 136 shares during the period. Finally, Ergoteles LLC lifted its stake in Ascendis Pharma A/S by 8.7% in the third quarter. Ergoteles LLC now owns 2,435 shares of the biotechnology company’s stock valued at $251,000 after buying an additional 194 shares in the last quarter.

About Ascendis Pharma A/S

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Ascendis Pharma A/S is a biopharmaceutical company, which engages in the development of drug candidates. It specializes on its TransCon technologies to create prodrugs that provide for the predictable and sustained release of an unmodified parent drug. The company was founded by Jan Moller Mikkelsen, Dirk Vetter, and Harald Rau in September 2006 and is headquartered in Hellerup, Denmark.