Short Interest in NextCure, Inc. (NASDAQ:NXTC) Declines By 89.3%

NextCure, Inc. (NASDAQ:NXTC) was the target of a large drop in short interest in July. As of July 31st, there was short interest totaling 141,248 shares, a drop of 89.3% from the July 15th total of 1,323,834 shares. Currently, 4.4% of the company’s stock are short sold. Based on an average daily volume of 862,182 shares, the days-to-cover ratio is presently 0.2 days.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

Several brokerages have weighed in on NXTC. HC Wainwright restated a “buy” rating on shares of NextCure in a research report on Thursday. Wall Street Zen cut shares of NextCure from a “hold” rating to a “sell” rating in a report on Saturday, July 18th. Weiss Ratings upgraded NextCure from a “sell (e+)” rating to a “sell (d-)” rating in a research note on Wednesday. Finally, Zacks Research upgraded shares of NextCure from a “strong sell” rating to a “hold” rating in a research report on Thursday, June 11th. Two analysts have rated the stock with a Buy rating, one has issued a Hold rating and one has assigned a Sell rating to the company. According to MarketBeat, NextCure has an average rating of “Hold” and a consensus target price of $19.00.

Insider Buying and Selling

In other news, major shareholder Adar1 Capital Management, Llc bought 36,303 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Friday, July 31st. The shares were purchased at an average cost of $4.94 per share, with a total value of $179,336.82. Following the transaction, the insider directly owned 722,419 shares in the company, valued at approximately $3,568,749.86. The trade was a 5.29% increase in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which is accessible through the SEC website. Insiders have purchased a total of 346,761 shares of company stock worth $1,710,807 over the last three months. Corporate insiders own 11.90% of the company’s stock.

Institutional Investors Weigh In On NextCure

Hedge funds and other institutional investors have recently bought and sold shares of the company. Ikarian Capital LLC purchased a new position in NextCure in the fourth quarter valued at $3,382,000. Squadron Capital Management LLC purchased a new stake in shares of NextCure in the fourth quarter worth about $3,363,000. Boothbay Fund Management LLC acquired a new stake in shares of NextCure in the 4th quarter valued at about $988,000. Affinity Asset Advisors LLC increased its holdings in shares of NextCure by 28.9% in the 4th quarter. Affinity Asset Advisors LLC now owns 247,294 shares of the company’s stock worth $3,509,000 after acquiring an additional 55,412 shares during the period. Finally, AWM Investment Company Inc. bought a new position in NextCure during the 4th quarter valued at $1,665,000. 42.65% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

NextCure Price Performance

Shares of NXTC traded up $0.11 during mid-day trading on Thursday, hitting $8.28. The stock had a trading volume of 285,750 shares, compared to its average volume of 907,313. The business has a fifty day moving average price of $3.59 and a 200-day moving average price of $8.26. The firm has a market cap of $29.89 million, a P/E ratio of -0.95 and a beta of 1.27. NextCure has a 52 week low of $1.55 and a 52 week high of $15.74.

NextCure (NASDAQ:NXTC) last announced its earnings results on Thursday, August 6th. The company reported ($2.80) earnings per share for the quarter, missing analysts’ consensus estimates of ($1.95) by ($0.85). As a group, research analysts expect that NextCure will post -7.99 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

NextCure Company Profile

NextCure, Inc is a clinical‐stage biopharmaceutical company focused on the discovery and development of novel immune modulators for the treatment of cancer and inflammatory diseases. Leveraging its proprietary Therapeutic Discovery Engine (TDE™), the company aims to identify, validate and optimize new targets in the immune response pathway. NextCure’s research platform integrates large‐scale proteomics and functional genomics to accelerate the progression of promising therapeutic candidates from early discovery through clinical development.

The company’s pipeline includes multiple product candidates in various stages of preclinical and clinical evaluation.