One of the standouts of today's morning trading session has been Lantheus, which logged a -4.5% drop and underperformed the S&P 500 by -7.0%. The Biotechnology stock is now trading at $104.83 per share and is -26.95% below its average target price of $143.5. Analysts have set target prices ranging from $127.0 to 165.0 dollars per share, and have given the stock an average rating of buy.
For the greater market's outlook on the stock, we can use Lantheus's short interest as a proxy. The short interest represents the proportion of the float's shares that are tied to short positions, meaning that the investor believes the stock will decline in the future. Here, the stock's short interest is 8.7% which means the outlook is split.
Short selling involves borrowing shares and then selling them at current market prices. In the successful version of the strategy, the shares are purchased at a lower price at some time in the future. The investor then returns the shares to the lender, and keeps the profit made on the sell/buy transaction.
Another way to gauge the sentiment on Lantheus is to look at the percentage of institutions that are invested in the stock. In this case, 100.5% of the shares are held by pension, mutual, and hedge funds, which shows that these institutions probably have strong confidence in the stock.
If institutions are invested in a particular stock, it shows in most cases that they have performed quality research and concluded that it is a good investment. In some cases, however, increases in institutional ownership could be a sign of a takeover attempt or proxy fight, which can actually injure share prices. Also, institutions are not infallible, and can certainly make miscalculations -- often with spectacular results.
Overall, there is mixed market sentiment towards Lantheus because of an analyst consensus of strong upside potential, a buy rating, an above average percentage of its shares sold short, and a significant number of institutional investors. Investors should not base their decisions on market sentiment only, they should also be aware of a stock's fundamentals before committing.
At a glance, here are some essential statistics you may want to know about LNTH:
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It has trailing 12 month earnings per share (EPS) of $6.56 per share
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Lantheus has a trailing 12 month Price to Earnings (P/E) ratio of 16.0 while the S&P 500 average is 28.21
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The company has a Price to Book (P/B) ratio of 7.09 in contrast to the S&P 500's average ratio of 4.71
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Lantheus is a Health Care company, and the sector average P/E and P/B ratios are 27.61 and 3.69 respectively
