Rigel Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (NASDAQ:RIGL) Short Interest Down 14.5% in September

Rigel Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (NASDAQ:RIGL) was the target of a large drop in short interest in the month of September. As of September 15th, there was short interest totalling 500,500 shares, a drop of 14.5% from the August 31st total of 585,300 shares. Approximately 2.9% of the company’s stock are short sold. Based on an average daily volume of 170,100 shares, the short-interest ratio is currently 2.9 days.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

Several brokerages recently issued reports on RIGL. StockNews.com raised shares of Rigel Pharmaceuticals from a “hold” rating to a “buy” rating in a report on Friday, July 5th. Cantor Fitzgerald reissued a “neutral” rating and issued a $15.00 price target on shares of Rigel Pharmaceuticals in a research report on Friday, September 20th. Finally, HC Wainwright reiterated a “buy” rating and issued a $57.00 target price on shares of Rigel Pharmaceuticals in a research note on Tuesday, September 3rd. Two 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, the company currently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $31.13.

Rigel Pharmaceuticals Price Performance

Shares of RIGL stock opened at $16.42 on Monday. The stock’s fifty day moving average price is $12.43 and its 200 day moving average price is $11.30. Rigel Pharmaceuticals has a 1-year low of $7.12 and a 1-year high of $17.30. The company has a market cap of $288.83 million, a price-to-earnings ratio of -13.68 and a beta of 0.93.

Rigel Pharmaceuticals (NASDAQ:RIGL) last released its earnings results on Tuesday, August 6th. The biotechnology company reported ($0.06) EPS for the quarter, topping analysts’ consensus estimates of ($0.37) by $0.31. The company had revenue of $36.84 million during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $32.38 million. During the same quarter last year, the business earned ($0.40) earnings per share. As a group, equities research analysts anticipate that Rigel Pharmaceuticals will post -0.72 earnings per share for the current year.

Institutional Investors Weigh In On Rigel Pharmaceuticals

A number of large investors have recently made changes to their positions in the stock. Healthcare of Ontario Pension Plan Trust Fund acquired a new stake in Rigel Pharmaceuticals during the 1st quarter worth about $2,012,000. Acadian Asset Management LLC lifted its holdings in shares of Rigel Pharmaceuticals by 18.2% during the first quarter. Acadian Asset Management LLC now owns 5,465,183 shares of the biotechnology company’s stock worth $8,086,000 after purchasing an additional 843,419 shares during the period. Vanguard Group Inc. boosted its position in Rigel Pharmaceuticals by 4.6% in the first quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 9,367,424 shares of the biotechnology company’s stock valued at $13,864,000 after buying an additional 414,207 shares during the last quarter. CM Management LLC boosted its position in Rigel Pharmaceuticals by 17.6% in the first quarter. CM Management LLC now owns 2,000,000 shares of the biotechnology company’s stock valued at $2,960,000 after buying an additional 300,000 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Los Angeles Capital Management LLC increased its holdings in Rigel Pharmaceuticals by 49.1% in the 1st quarter. Los Angeles Capital Management LLC now owns 603,123 shares of the biotechnology company’s stock worth $893,000 after buying an additional 198,712 shares during the period. 66.23% of the stock is owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

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.