Nkarta (NASDAQ:NKTX) Receives Buy Rating from Needham & Company LLC

Needham & Company LLC reaffirmed their buy rating on shares of Nkarta (NASDAQ:NKTX) in a report published on Thursday morning,Benzinga reports. They currently have a $11.00 price objective on the stock.

Nkarta Trading Up 43.8 %

Shares of NASDAQ:NKTX opened at $1.97 on Thursday. The company has a market cap of $139.02 million, a price-to-earnings ratio of -1.05 and a beta of 0.90. Nkarta has a 12 month low of $1.31 and a 12 month high of $11.84. The company has a 50-day moving average price of $2.00 and a 200-day moving average price of $2.89.

Nkarta (NASDAQ:NKTX) last announced its earnings results on Wednesday, March 26th. The company reported ($0.35) EPS for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of ($0.41) by $0.06. As a group, research analysts forecast that Nkarta will post -1.7 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Insider Activity at Nkarta

In other Nkarta news, CEO Paul J. Hastings sold 17,378 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction on Wednesday, January 15th. The stock was sold at an average price of $2.20, for a total transaction of $38,231.60. Following the completion of the transaction, the chief executive officer now owns 319,859 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $703,689.80. This trade represents a 5.15 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which can be accessed through this link. 8.70% of the stock is currently owned by corporate insiders.

Institutional Investors Weigh In On Nkarta

A number of institutional investors have recently made changes to their positions in the company. Wellington Management Group LLP lifted its position in Nkarta by 4.1% in the 4th quarter. Wellington Management Group LLP now owns 225,224 shares of the company’s stock valued at $561,000 after acquiring an additional 8,883 shares in the last quarter. Jefferies Financial Group Inc. raised its stake in shares of Nkarta by 901.7% in the fourth quarter. Jefferies Financial Group Inc. now owns 2,504,219 shares of the company’s stock worth $6,236,000 after purchasing an additional 2,254,219 shares during the last quarter. AWM Investment Company Inc. bought a new position in shares of Nkarta during the fourth quarter valued at $996,000. Two Sigma Advisers LP purchased a new stake in shares of Nkarta during the fourth quarter valued at $258,000. Finally, Tang Capital Management LLC increased its holdings in Nkarta by 252.9% in the 4th quarter. Tang Capital Management LLC now owns 2,293,719 shares of the company’s stock worth $5,711,000 after buying an additional 1,643,719 shares in the last quarter. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 80.54% of the company’s stock.

About Nkarta

Nkarta, Inc, a clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company, develops and commercializes natural killer cell therapies for cancer and autoimmune disease treatment. The company's lead product candidate is NKX019, a chimeric antigen receptor-natural killer (CAR NK) targeting the CD19 antigen that is in Phase 1 clinical trial for the treatment of relapsed/refractory (r/r) non-hodgkin lymphoma, as well as for lupus nephritis.