Rocketing to a price of $61.58 during today's evening trading session, shares of Apellis Pharmaceuticals are still -13.5% below their average target price of $71.19. Could there be more upside potential for the stock? Analysts are giving APLS an average rating of buy and target prices ranging from $44.0 to $95.0 dollars per share.
The market, on the other hand, is a bit more pessimistic. Apellis Pharmaceuticals's short interest -- meaning the percentage of its share float that is being shorted on an expectation of a price decline -- is quite high at 15.8%. The float includes only shares that are available for public trading, and excludes preferred shares.
When a stock is sold short, it means an investor has borrowed shares of the stock from their broker, and then sold them at the going market price. The investor hopes for the price to decline, so that they might buy those shares back at a lower price in the future. Once they do, they can return the borrowed shares to their broker, and keep the profit they made on the transaction.
One way to get an idea of the market sentiment on a stock is to check its rate of institutional ownership. In the case of Apellis Pharmaceuticals, institutional investors own 96.8% of the shares. This would indicate a positive sentiment towards the stock among institutions. What does this really tell us?
Institutional investors such as hedge funds, investment firms, and wealth managers devote significant resources to identifying good investments. If they have decided to invest in APLS, it probably means they believe it is a solid investment choice. But it could also mean they are buying up shares in an effort to acquire the company or get seats on the board of directors. Also bear in mind that institutions are fallible (just maybe not quite as fallible as the average retail investor), so they may simply be wrong when they think they've found a good stock.
In conclusion, we see None regarding Apellis Pharmaceuticals because of None, None, None, and None. At Market Inference, we believe that any investment decision should be preceded by an in-depth analysis of the company's fundamental values and a comparison with similar stocks.
Here's a snapshot of some important facts to keep in mind about APLS:
-
The stock has trailing 12 month earnings per share (EPS) of $-5.23
-
Apellis Pharmaceuticals has a trailing 12 month Price to Earnings (P/E) ratio of -11.8 compared to the S&P 500 average of None
-
The company has a Price to Book (P/B) ratio of 31.39 in contrast to the S&P 500's average ratio of None
-
Apellis Pharmaceuticals is a Health Care company, and the sector average P/E and P/B ratios are None and None respectively
