Mersana Therapeutics Sees Unusually Large Options Volume (NASDAQ:MRSN)

Mersana Therapeutics, Inc. (NASDAQ:MRSN) saw some unusual options trading on Thursday. Stock traders purchased 8,320 call options on the company. This is an increase of 1,954% compared to the average daily volume of 405 call options.

Institutional Inflows and Outflows

Hedge funds have recently modified their holdings of the stock. Russell Investments Group Ltd. grew its stake in Mersana Therapeutics by 976.7% during the first quarter. Russell Investments Group Ltd. now owns 9,453 shares of the company’s stock worth $42,000 after buying an additional 8,575 shares in the last quarter. Harbor Capital Advisors Inc. boosted its position in shares of Mersana Therapeutics by 28.1% during the 4th quarter. Harbor Capital Advisors Inc. now owns 47,472 shares of the company’s stock worth $110,000 after acquiring an additional 10,410 shares in the last quarter. Victory Capital Management Inc. bought a new position in Mersana Therapeutics in the fourth quarter valued at approximately $30,000. Nisa Investment Advisors LLC raised its position in Mersana Therapeutics by 479.8% during the fourth quarter. Nisa Investment Advisors LLC now owns 17,643 shares of the company’s stock valued at $41,000 after purchasing an additional 14,600 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Fox Run Management L.L.C. bought a new stake in Mersana Therapeutics during the third quarter worth $28,000. Institutional investors own 93.92% of the company’s stock.

Analyst Ratings Changes

MRSN has been the topic of a number of recent analyst reports. Robert W. Baird boosted their target price on Mersana Therapeutics from $1.00 to $5.00 and gave the stock a “neutral” rating in a report on Thursday, February 29th. Truist Financial raised shares of Mersana Therapeutics from a “hold” rating to a “buy” rating and set a $9.00 price objective on the stock in a research report on Thursday, February 29th. Wedbush raised shares of Mersana Therapeutics from a “neutral” rating to an “outperform” rating and lifted their target price for the stock from $2.00 to $7.00 in a report on Thursday, February 29th. JPMorgan Chase & Co. upgraded shares of Mersana Therapeutics from an “underweight” rating to a “neutral” rating and set a $5.00 price target on the stock in a research note on Tuesday, March 19th. Finally, BTIG Research upgraded shares of Mersana Therapeutics from a “neutral” rating to a “buy” rating and set a $6.00 price objective for the company in a research report on Thursday, February 29th. Two research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and five have assigned a buy rating to the company’s stock. According to MarketBeat.com, Mersana Therapeutics has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $6.29.

Mersana Therapeutics Stock Performance

Mersana Therapeutics stock traded down $0.46 during midday trading on Thursday, hitting $2.94. The company’s stock had a trading volume of 1,420,792 shares, compared to its average volume of 2,096,803. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.63, a current ratio of 3.36 and a quick ratio of 3.36. The company has a market cap of $356.63 million, a price-to-earnings ratio of -2.04 and a beta of 1.61. Mersana Therapeutics has a 1-year low of $0.80 and a 1-year high of $9.62. The company has a 50-day moving average price of $4.29 and a two-hundred day moving average price of $3.08.

Mersana Therapeutics (NASDAQ:MRSN) last released its quarterly earnings results on Wednesday, February 28th. The company reported ($0.16) earnings per share for the quarter, meeting analysts’ consensus estimates of ($0.16). Mersana Therapeutics had a negative net margin of 465.80% and a negative return on equity of 282.36%. The company had revenue of $10.70 million during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $22.59 million. During the same period in the previous year, the business earned ($0.44) earnings per share. The firm’s quarterly revenue was down 27.1% on a year-over-year basis. As a group, sell-side analysts predict that Mersana Therapeutics will post -0.6 earnings per share for the current year.

About Mersana Therapeutics

Mersana Therapeutics, Inc, a clinical stage biopharmaceutical company, develops antibody drug conjugates (ADC) for cancer patients with unmet needs. The company develops XMT-1660, a B7-H4-targeted Dolasynthen ADC candidate; and XMT-2056, an immunosynthen ADC. It has research and development collaborations with Janssen Biotech, Inc, Ares Trading SA, Merck KGaA, and Asana BioSciences, LLC for the development of ADC product candidates.