Liquidia (NASDAQ:LQDA) Director Katherine Rielly-Gauvin Sells 18,393 Shares

Liquidia Corporation (NASDAQ:LQDA) Director Katherine Rielly-Gauvin sold 18,393 shares of the stock in a transaction dated Thursday, August 20th. The stock was sold at an average price of $72.23, for a total transaction of $1,328,526.39. Following the transaction, the director directly owned 44,637 shares in the company, valued at $3,224,130.51. The trade was a 29.18% decrease in their position. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which is available at this link. The transaction was executed under a pre-arranged Rule 10b5-1 trading plan.

Katherine Rielly-Gauvin also recently made the following trade(s):

• On Wednesday, August 19th, Katherine Rielly-Gauvin sold 36,789 shares of Liquidia stock. The shares were sold at an average price of $74.99, for a total value of $2,758,807.11.

Liquidia Stock Down 3.4%

NASDAQ LQDA traded down $2.43 on Friday, hitting $68.62. 1,698,657 shares of the stock traded hands, compared to its average volume of 1,793,328. The stock has a 50-day moving average of $79.34 and a 200 day moving average of $56.13. Liquidia Corporation has a twelve month low of $21.15 and a twelve month high of $93.61. The company has a market capitalization of $6.14 billion, a P/E ratio of 50.09 and a beta of 0.58. The company has a current ratio of 2.31, a quick ratio of 2.12 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.63.

Liquidia (NASDAQ:LQDA) last released its earnings results on Wednesday, August 12th. The company reported $0.74 EPS for the quarter, missing analysts’ consensus estimates of $0.76 by ($0.02). The firm had revenue of $171.68 million for 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 company’s quarterly revenue was up 1842.1% on a year-over-year basis. During the same period in the prior year, the business earned ($0.49) EPS. As a group, analysts expect that Liquidia Corporation will post 2.57 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Institutional Investors Weigh In On Liquidia

A number of hedge funds have recently added to or reduced their stakes in LQDA. MIRAE ASSET GLOBAL ETFS HOLDINGS Ltd. grew its position in shares of Liquidia by 4.7% during the first quarter. MIRAE ASSET GLOBAL ETFS HOLDINGS Ltd. now owns 37,681 shares of the company’s stock worth $556,000 after acquiring an additional 1,700 shares during the last quarter. Goldman Sachs Group Inc. lifted its position in Liquidia by 10.7% in the 1st quarter. Goldman Sachs Group Inc. now owns 861,231 shares of the company’s stock valued at $12,703,000 after purchasing an additional 82,955 shares during the last quarter. UBS AM A Distinct Business Unit of UBS Asset Management Americas LLC lifted its position in Liquidia by 15.2% in the 1st quarter. UBS AM A Distinct Business Unit of UBS Asset Management Americas LLC now owns 121,756 shares of the company’s stock valued at $1,796,000 after purchasing an additional 16,022 shares during the last quarter. Creative Planning boosted its stake in Liquidia by 40.7% during the 2nd quarter. Creative Planning now owns 26,840 shares of the company’s stock valued at $334,000 after purchasing an additional 7,765 shares during the period. Finally, Legal & General Group Plc boosted its stake in Liquidia by 13.4% during the 2nd quarter. Legal & General Group Plc now owns 94,152 shares of the company’s stock valued at $1,174,000 after purchasing an additional 11,111 shares during the period. 64.54% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

Several brokerages recently issued reports on LQDA. Wells Fargo & Company raised their price objective on Liquidia from $62.00 to $108.00 and gave the stock an “overweight” rating in a research note on Thursday, August 13th. Raymond James Financial reiterated a “strong-buy” rating and set a $106.00 target price on shares of Liquidia in a research note on Thursday, August 13th. Weiss Ratings reissued a “sell (d-)” rating on shares of Liquidia in a report on Friday, July 17th. HC Wainwright set a $36.00 price target on shares of Liquidia in a research report on Friday, July 24th. Finally, Wall Street Zen lowered shares of Liquidia from a “strong-buy” rating to a “buy” rating in a report on Saturday, June 27th. One research analyst has rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, five have assigned a Buy rating, three have given a Hold rating and two have assigned a Sell rating to the company. According to MarketBeat, the company currently has a consensus rating of “Hold” and a consensus price target of $98.08.

About Liquidia

Liquidia Technologies, Inc is a clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company headquartered in Research Triangle Park, North Carolina. The company leverages its proprietary PRINT® (Particle Replication In Non-wetting Templates) platform to engineer precisely shaped and sized drug particles, with the goal of improving delivery, efficacy and safety profiles. By controlling particle characteristics at the nanoscale, Liquidia seeks to enhance respiratory and other therapies that depend on targeted delivery.

The company’s lead product candidate, LIQ861, is a dry powder formulation of treprostinil designed for inhalation in patients with pulmonary arterial hypertension (PAH).