ProShare Advisors LLC Grows Holdings in Alkermes plc (NASDAQ:ALKS)

ProShare Advisors LLC grew its stake in shares of Alkermes plc (NASDAQ:ALKS) by 27.9% during the 4th quarter, according to the company in its most recent 13F filing with the SEC. The institutional investor owned 56,211 shares of the company’s stock after buying an additional 12,274 shares during the quarter. ProShare Advisors LLC’s holdings in Alkermes were worth $1,617,000 at the end of the most recent quarter.

Several other institutional investors and hedge funds have also recently made changes to their positions in ALKS. Quantedge Capital Pte Ltd bought a new position in Alkermes in the fourth quarter valued at $1,665,000. Quantinno Capital Management LP bought a new stake in Alkermes during the fourth quarter worth about $247,000. Nuveen Asset Management LLC boosted its holdings in shares of Alkermes by 109.5% in the 4th quarter. Nuveen Asset Management LLC now owns 1,659,821 shares of the company’s stock worth $47,736,000 after purchasing an additional 867,492 shares in the last quarter. MIRAE ASSET GLOBAL ETFS HOLDINGS Ltd. increased its position in shares of Alkermes by 0.3% during the 4th quarter. MIRAE ASSET GLOBAL ETFS HOLDINGS Ltd. now owns 100,032 shares of the company’s stock valued at $2,877,000 after purchasing an additional 311 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Cetera Investment Advisers raised its holdings in shares of Alkermes by 10.4% during the 4th quarter. Cetera Investment Advisers now owns 10,645 shares of the company’s stock valued at $306,000 after buying an additional 999 shares in the last quarter. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 95.21% of the company’s stock.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

ALKS has been the subject of several research reports. StockNews.com lowered Alkermes from a “strong-buy” rating to a “buy” rating in a research note on Monday, May 5th. The Goldman Sachs Group boosted their price objective on shares of Alkermes from $30.00 to $32.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a report on Friday, February 14th. UBS Group reaffirmed a “sector perform” rating on shares of Alkermes in a report on Monday, April 28th. Royal Bank of Canada lifted their target price on shares of Alkermes from $39.00 to $40.00 and gave the stock a “sector perform” rating in a research report on Friday, May 2nd. Finally, HC Wainwright restated a “neutral” rating on shares of Alkermes in a research report on Friday, May 2nd. Four research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, eight have given a buy rating and one has issued a strong buy rating to the stock. Based on data from MarketBeat, Alkermes presently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average price target of $38.33.

Alkermes Trading Down 3.6%

Shares of NASDAQ:ALKS opened at $30.53 on Thursday. The company has a 50-day moving average price of $30.41 and a 200-day moving average price of $30.78. The company has a market cap of $5.03 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 14.07, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 2.20 and a beta of 0.51. Alkermes plc has a 12 month low of $22.90 and a 12 month high of $36.45.

Alkermes (NASDAQ:ALKS) last released its quarterly earnings results on Thursday, May 1st. The company reported $0.13 EPS for the quarter, missing analysts’ consensus estimates of $0.32 by ($0.19). Alkermes had a net margin of 23.57% and a return on equity of 30.80%. The business had revenue of $306.51 million for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $307.53 million. During the same period in the previous year, the company earned $0.43 EPS. The company’s revenue for the quarter was down 12.6% on a year-over-year basis. As a group, research analysts forecast that Alkermes plc will post 1.31 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Alkermes Company Profile

Alkermes plc, a biopharmaceutical company, researches, develops, and commercializes pharmaceutical products to address unmet medical needs of patients in therapeutic areas in the United States, Ireland, and internationally. It has a portfolio of proprietary commercial products for the treatment of alcohol dependence, opioid dependence, schizophrenia and bipolar I disorder and a pipeline of clinical and preclinical product candidates in development for neurological disorders.