Short Interest in Rigel Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (NASDAQ:RIGL) Decreases By 86.8%

Rigel Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (NASDAQ:RIGL) was the recipient of a significant drop in short interest in June. As of June 30th, there was short interest totalling 648,200 shares, a drop of 86.8% from the June 15th total of 4,900,000 shares. Approximately 3.8% of the shares of the company are short sold. Based on an average daily volume of 207,000 shares, the short-interest ratio is currently 3.1 days.

Rigel Pharmaceuticals Price Performance

Rigel Pharmaceuticals stock traded up $0.36 during mid-day trading on Friday, reaching $9.98. 244,600 shares of the company traded hands, compared to its average volume of 160,623. The firm’s 50 day moving average price is $9.39 and its 200 day moving average price is $11.81. The firm has a market capitalization of $175.25 million, a price-to-earnings ratio of -8.32 and a beta of 0.96. Rigel Pharmaceuticals has a 52-week low of $7.12 and a 52-week high of $17.30.

Rigel Pharmaceuticals (NASDAQ:RIGL) last released its earnings results on Tuesday, May 7th. The biotechnology company reported ($0.50) earnings per share for the quarter, missing analysts’ consensus estimates of ($0.30) by ($0.20). The firm had revenue of $29.53 million for the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $31.28 million. During the same quarter in the previous year, the company earned ($0.80) earnings per share. On average, sell-side analysts anticipate that Rigel Pharmaceuticals will post -1.33 EPS for the current year.

Hedge Funds Weigh In On Rigel Pharmaceuticals

Hedge funds have recently bought and sold shares of the company. SG Americas Securities LLC lifted its stake in Rigel Pharmaceuticals by 57.7% during the 4th quarter. SG Americas Securities LLC now owns 49,673 shares of the biotechnology company’s stock valued at $72,000 after acquiring an additional 18,180 shares during the period. Los Angeles Capital Management LLC lifted its stake in Rigel Pharmaceuticals by 49.1% during the 1st quarter. Los Angeles Capital Management LLC now owns 603,123 shares of the biotechnology company’s stock valued at $893,000 after acquiring an additional 198,712 shares during the period. BNP Paribas Financial Markets lifted its stake in Rigel Pharmaceuticals by 24.2% during the 1st quarter. BNP Paribas Financial Markets now owns 252,955 shares of the biotechnology company’s stock valued at $374,000 after acquiring an additional 49,223 shares during the period. Vanguard Group Inc. lifted its stake in Rigel Pharmaceuticals by 4.6% during the 1st quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 9,367,424 shares of the biotechnology company’s stock valued at $13,864,000 after acquiring an additional 414,207 shares during the period. Finally, Acadian Asset Management LLC lifted its stake in Rigel Pharmaceuticals by 18.2% during the 1st quarter. Acadian Asset Management LLC now owns 5,465,183 shares of the biotechnology company’s stock valued at $8,086,000 after acquiring an additional 843,419 shares during the period. Institutional investors own 66.23% of the company’s stock.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

Several brokerages recently commented on RIGL. HC Wainwright reaffirmed a “buy” rating and set a $150.00 price objective on shares of Rigel Pharmaceuticals in a research note on Tuesday, June 25th. StockNews.com upgraded shares of Rigel Pharmaceuticals from a “hold” rating to a “buy” rating in a research report on Friday, July 5th. Two research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and three have assigned a buy rating to the company’s stock. Based on data from MarketBeat, Rigel Pharmaceuticals has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus price target of $58.13.

About Rigel Pharmaceuticals

Rigel Pharmaceuticals, Inc, a biotechnology company, engages in discovering, developing, and providing therapies that enhance the lives of patients with hematologic disorders and cancer. The company's commercialized products include Tavalisse, an oral spleen tyrosine kinase inhibitor for the treatment of adult patients with chronic immune thrombocytopenia; Rezlidhia, a non-intensive monotherapy for the treatment of adult patients with relapsed or refractory (R/R) acute myeloid leukemia (AML) with a susceptible isocitrate dehydrogenase-1 (IDH1) mutation as detected by an FDA-approved test; and GAVRETO, a once daily, small molecule, oral, kinase inhibitor for the treatment of adult patients with metastatic rearranged during transfection (RET) fusion-positive non-small cell lung cancer, as well as for the treatment of adult and pediatric patients 12 years of age and older with advanced or metastatic RET fusion-positive thyroid cancer.