Liquidia (NASDAQ:LQDA) Shares Gap Down – Time to Sell?

Liquidia Corporation (NASDAQ:LQDA) shares gapped down before the market opened on Friday. The stock had previously closed at $28.02, but opened at $27.06. Liquidia shares last traded at $27.2620, with a volume of 338,318 shares trading hands.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

LQDA has been the subject of several recent analyst reports. Needham & Company LLC decreased their price target on Liquidia from $110.00 to $72.00 and set a “buy” rating for the company in a research note on Thursday, October 1st. Wall Street Zen downgraded Liquidia from a “buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a report on Saturday, October 3rd. Wells Fargo & Company reissued an “equal weight” rating and issued a $30.00 target price (down from $108.00) on shares of Liquidia in a research report on Friday, October 2nd. Bank of America upped their target price on shares of Liquidia from $79.00 to $92.00 and gave the company a “neutral” rating in a research note on Thursday, August 13th. Finally, Raymond James Financial reaffirmed an “outperform” rating on shares of Liquidia in a report on Thursday. One investment analyst has rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, three have assigned a Buy rating, six have issued a Hold rating and two have given a Sell rating to the company’s stock. According to MarketBeat, Liquidia presently has a consensus rating of “Hold” and a consensus price target of $83.69.

Liquidia Price Performance

The stock has a market capitalization of $2.48 billion, a P/E ratio of 20.28 and a beta of 0.61. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.63, a quick ratio of 2.12 and a current ratio of 2.31. The firm has a fifty day moving average price of $66.89 and a two-hundred day moving average price of $61.93.

Liquidia (NASDAQ:LQDA) last issued its quarterly earnings data on Wednesday, August 12th. The company reported $0.74 EPS for the quarter, missing the consensus estimate of $0.76 by ($0.02). The firm had revenue of $171.68 million during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $168.48 million. Liquidia had a return on equity of 149.65% and a net margin of 30.74%.The business’s revenue was up 1842.1% on a year-over-year basis. During the same period in the previous year, the firm earned ($0.49) EPS. As a group, analysts expect that Liquidia Corporation will post 2.1 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Insiders Place Their Bets

In other Liquidia news, CEO Roger Jeffs sold 35,249 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction dated Monday, July 13th. The stock was sold at an average price of $71.51, for a total transaction of $2,520,655.99. Following the completion of the sale, the chief executive officer directly owned 1,130,426 shares in the company, valued at $80,836,763.26. The trade was a 3.02% decrease in their position. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which is available through this hyperlink. The transaction was executed under a pre-arranged Rule 10b5-1 trading plan. The sale was made to cover tax withholding obligations related to the vesting of equity awards. Also, insider Jason Adair sold 73,631 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction dated Friday, August 21st. The shares were sold at an average price of $69.09, for a total transaction of $5,087,165.79. Following the sale, the insider directly owned 174,606 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $12,063,528.54. The trade was a 29.66% decrease in their position. Additional details regarding this sale are available in the official SEC disclosure. The transaction was executed under a pre-arranged Rule 10b5-1 trading plan. In the last three months, insiders sold 757,996 shares of company stock valued at $46,429,005. 25.60% of the stock is currently owned by company insiders.

Institutional Trading of Liquidia

A number of hedge funds and other institutional investors have recently added to or reduced their stakes in LQDA. WINTON GROUP Ltd purchased a new stake in Liquidia during the second quarter valued at approximately $335,000. Arizona State Retirement System boosted its stake in shares of Liquidia by 5.4% during the 2nd quarter. Arizona State Retirement System now owns 17,627 shares of the company’s stock worth $1,405,000 after acquiring an additional 900 shares during the last quarter. Nykredit A S bought a new stake in shares of Liquidia during the 2nd quarter valued at $177,000. Corient Private Wealth LP bought a new stake in shares of Liquidia during the 2nd quarter valued at $758,000. Finally, VIRGINIA RETIREMENT SYSTEMS ET Al purchased a new stake in shares of Liquidia in the 2nd quarter worth $1,236,000. 64.54% of the stock is owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

Liquidia Company Profile

Liquidia Corporation is a biopharmaceutical company focused on developing and commercializing therapies for patients with serious cardiopulmonary diseases and other rare conditions. The company uses its proprietary PRINT technology to engineer drug particles with controlled size, shape and composition, with the goal of improving the delivery and performance of medicines.

Liquidia’s lead product is Yutrepia (treprostinil) inhalation powder, a dry-powder inhaler designed for the treatment of pulmonary arterial hypertension (PAH).