Aridis Pharmaceuticals Inc. (NASDAQ: ARDS) stock jumped 37.14% on Friday to $1.92 against a previous-day closing price of $1.40. With 1.76 million shares changed hands, the volume of the stock remained heavier than its average volume of 52610.0 shares. During the session, the Biotechnology company that operates in wider Healthcare sector, reached to the highest price of $2.0000 whereas the lowest price it dropped to was $1.5000. The 52-week range on ARDS shows that it touched its highest point at $5.25 and its lowest point at $0.88 during that stretch. It currently has a 1-year price target of $9.33. Beta for the stock currently stands at 0.42.
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Price Performance and Earnings:
Stock performance is one of the indicators that investors use to determine whether they will profit from a stock. The price performance of ARDS was up-trending over the past week, with a rise of 66.96%, but this was up by 64.10% over a month. Three-month performance surged to 54.84% while six-month performance rose 10.34%. The stock lost -61.90% in the past year, while it has lost -17.60% so far this year. A look at the trailing 12-month EPS for ARDS yields -3.44 with Next year EPS estimates of -0.60. For the next quarter, that number is -0.06. This implies an EPS growth rate of -54.70% for this year and 93.80% for next year.
Float and Shares Shorts:
At present, 17.70 million ARDS shares are outstanding with a float of 14.49 million shares on hand for trading. On Apr 28, 2022, short shares totaled 0.11 million, which was 0.62% higher than short shares on Mar 30, 2022. In addition to Dr. Vu L. Truong Ph.D. as the firm’s Founder, CEO, Chief Scientific Officer & Director, Mr. Fred Kurland J.D., M.B.A. serves as its Chief Financial Officer.
Institutional Ownership:
Through their ownership of 12.15% of ARDS’s outstanding shares, institutional investors have minority control over the company. Other institutions hold 8.17% of ARDS, in contrast to 6.31% held by mutual funds. Shares owned by individuals account for 5.30%. As the largest shareholder in ARDS with 3.20% of the stake, Commonwealth Equity Services LLC holds 567,200 shares worth 567,200. A second-largest stockholder of ARDS, The Vanguard Group, Inc., holds 517,805 shares, controlling over 2.93% of the firm’s shares. Roumell Asset Management LLC is the third largest shareholder in ARDS, holding 446,588 shares or 2.52% stake. With a 2.52% stake in ARDS, the Roumell Opportunistic Value Fund is the largest stakeholder. A total of 446,588 shares are owned by the mutual fund manager. The Vanguard Total Stock Market Index, which owns about 2.20% of ARDS stock, is the second-largest Mutual Fund holder. It holds 388,959 shares valued at 0.43 million. Vanguard Extended Market Index Fu holds 0.73% of the stake in ARDS, owning 128,846 shares worth 0.14 million.
Analysts Ratings:
Reading analyst opinions is an effective way to decide where to invest, and there are several opinions available for ARDS since 2 analysts follow the stock currently. There are 2 analysts who recommend BUY ratings, while 0 suggest SELL ratings. Of the remaining analysts, 0 believe that the stock is worth HOLDING, 0 give it an OVERWEIGHT rating, and 0 thinks that it’s UNDERWEIGHT. In the same way, a target price assigned to a stock can also reveal much about its potential. With ARDS analysts setting a high price target of $19.00 and a low target of $5.00, the average target price over the next 12 months is $12.00. Based on these targets, ARDS could surge 889.58% to reach the target high and rise by 160.42% to reach the target low. Reaching the average price target will result in a growth of 525.0% from current levels.
EPS: Estimates vs Actual
It is also common to use earnings estimates to evaluate a firm’s growth potential and to determine trading strategy. ARDS will report FY 2022 earnings on 03/30/2023. Analysts have provided yearly estimates in a range of $1.28 being high and -$1.95 being low. For ARDS, this leads to a yearly average estimate of -$0.34. The earnings surprise of a firm occurs when the actual results change from the consensus earnings estimate. Aridis Pharmaceuticals Inc. surprised analysts by $0.07 when it reported -$0.44 EPS against a consensus estimate of -$0.51. The surprise factor in the prior quarter was -$0.51. Based on analyst estimates, the high estimate for the next quarter is $0.37 and the low estimate is -$0.49. The average estimate for the next quarter is thus -$0.06.
Summary of Insider Activity:
Insiders traded ARDS stock several times over the past three months with 0 Buys and 0 Sells. In these transactions, 0 shares were bought while 0 shares were sold. The number of buy transactions has increased to 3 while that of sell transactions has remained unmoved to 0 over the past year. The total number of shares bought during that period was 5,100 while 0 shares were sold.
