BioNTech (NASDAQ:BNTX) Stock Rating Upgraded by Wall Street Zen

BioNTech (NASDAQ:BNTX) was upgraded by equities researchers at Wall Street Zen from a “sell” rating to a “hold” rating in a research note issued to investors on Saturday.

Other equities analysts have also issued reports about the company. UBS Group raised BioNTech from a “neutral” rating to a “buy” rating and boosted their price target for the company from $117.00 to $135.00 in a research note on Wednesday, May 27th. Wells Fargo & Company dropped their price objective on shares of BioNTech from $150.00 to $140.00 and set an “overweight” rating on the stock in a research note on Wednesday, May 6th. Sanford C. Bernstein reissued a “market perform” rating on shares of BioNTech in a research report on Friday, June 5th. Weiss Ratings reiterated a “sell (d-)” rating on shares of BioNTech in a research note on Monday, July 6th. Finally, Truist Financial upgraded shares of BioNTech to a “strong-buy” rating in a report on Wednesday, March 25th. One analyst has rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, thirteen have given a Buy rating, four have given a Hold rating and one has issued a Sell rating to the stock. According to MarketBeat, the stock currently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus target price of $129.12.

BioNTech Stock Performance

NASDAQ:BNTX opened at $91.48 on Friday. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.01, a quick ratio of 8.74 and a current ratio of 8.80. BioNTech has a fifty-two week low of $79.52 and a fifty-two week high of $124.00. The company has a 50 day simple moving average of $91.35 and a two-hundred day simple moving average of $97.83. The company has a market capitalization of $23.13 billion, a PE ratio of -15.56 and a beta of 1.32.

BioNTech (NASDAQ:BNTX) last posted its quarterly earnings data on Monday, May 4th. The company reported ($2.26) EPS for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of ($2.52) by $0.26. The company had revenue of $136.71 million for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $207.42 million. BioNTech had a negative net margin of 44.39% and a negative return on equity of 5.30%. The company’s quarterly revenue was down 35.4% on a year-over-year basis. During the same period in the prior year, the firm posted ($1.73) EPS. Research analysts anticipate that BioNTech will post -5.79 earnings per share for the current year.

BioNTech announced that its board has initiated a share buyback program on Thursday, May 7th that permits the company to repurchase $1.00 billion in shares. This repurchase authorization permits the company to purchase up to 4.2% of its shares through open market purchases. Shares repurchase programs are typically a sign that the company’s board of directors believes its stock is undervalued.

Insider Buying and Selling

In other BioNTech news, COO Sierk Poetting sold 50,000 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction dated Wednesday, April 22nd. The shares were sold at an average price of $110.56, for a total transaction of $5,528,000.00. Following the sale, the chief operating officer directly owned 399,387 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $44,156,226.72. This represents a 11.13% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available through this link. The transaction was executed under a pre-arranged Rule 10b5-1 trading plan. 19.20% of the stock is currently owned by company insiders.

Institutional Investors Weigh In On BioNTech

Several institutional investors have recently made changes to their positions in BNTX. PensionDanmark Pensionsforsikringsaktieselskab grew its position in shares of BioNTech by 10.9% in the second quarter. PensionDanmark Pensionsforsikringsaktieselskab now owns 8,290 shares of the company’s stock valued at $771,000 after purchasing an additional 816 shares in the last quarter. Assenagon Asset Management S.A. bought a new position in shares of BioNTech in the second quarter valued at approximately $39,385,000. Bank of America Corp DE increased its holdings in BioNTech by 22.6% during the 1st quarter. Bank of America Corp DE now owns 903,029 shares of the company’s stock worth $80,261,000 after acquiring an additional 166,432 shares during the period. Amundi lifted its stake in BioNTech by 24.5% in the 1st quarter. Amundi now owns 129,513 shares of the company’s stock worth $11,511,000 after purchasing an additional 25,506 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Royal Bank of Canada increased its holdings in shares of BioNTech by 15.5% in the first quarter. Royal Bank of Canada now owns 46,991 shares of the company’s stock worth $4,177,000 after purchasing an additional 6,308 shares during the period. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 15.52% of the company’s stock.

BioNTech Company Profile

BioNTech SE (NASDAQ: BNTX) is a Germany-based biotechnology company that develops next-generation immunotherapies and vaccines, with a primary focus on messenger RNA (mRNA) technology. Founded in 2008 and headquartered in Mainz, BioNTech advances a platform approach to design and manufacture therapeutics across oncology, infectious diseases and other high unmet-need areas. The company is publicly traded on the NASDAQ exchange and became widely known for its rapid development and global deployment of an mRNA-based COVID-19 vaccine in collaboration with Pfizer.

BioNTech’s core activities include discovery research, clinical development and manufacturing of mRNA-based medicines, personalized cancer immunotherapies, engineered cell therapies, and antibody- and protein-based therapeutics.