Agios Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (NASDAQ:AGIO) Short Interest Up 8.0% in December

Agios Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (NASDAQ:AGIO) was the target of a large growth in short interest in the month of December. As of December 31st, there was short interest totalling 5,530,000 shares, a growth of 8.0% from the December 15th total of 5,120,000 shares. Approximately 10.0% of the company’s stock are sold short. Based on an average daily volume of 831,700 shares, the days-to-cover ratio is presently 6.6 days.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

AGIO has been the topic of a number of recent research reports. Leerink Partners downgraded Agios Pharmaceuticals from an “outperform” rating to a “market perform” rating and lowered their target price for the company from $60.00 to $56.00 in a research report on Friday, September 27th. Leerink Partnrs cut shares of Agios Pharmaceuticals from a “strong-buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a research note on Friday, September 27th. Cantor Fitzgerald reaffirmed an “overweight” rating on shares of Agios Pharmaceuticals in a research report on Wednesday, December 18th. StockNews.com raised shares of Agios Pharmaceuticals from a “sell” rating to a “hold” rating in a research report on Saturday, November 9th. Finally, Raymond James reaffirmed an “outperform” rating and issued a $51.00 target price on shares of Agios Pharmaceuticals in a report on Thursday, October 10th. Five analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and four have assigned a buy rating to the company. According to data from MarketBeat, the company presently has a consensus rating of “Hold” and a consensus target price of $56.33.

Agios Pharmaceuticals Price Performance

Shares of AGIO opened at $32.42 on Tuesday. The company’s 50-day moving average is $44.16 and its 200-day moving average is $45.03. The firm has a market capitalization of $1.85 billion, a PE ratio of 2.85 and a beta of 0.87. Agios Pharmaceuticals has a fifty-two week low of $20.96 and a fifty-two week high of $62.58.

Insider Activity at Agios Pharmaceuticals

In related news, insider Tsveta Milanova sold 2,804 shares of the stock in a transaction on Monday, January 6th. The shares were sold at an average price of $32.18, for a total transaction of $90,232.72. Following the completion of the transaction, the insider now owns 18,906 shares in the company, valued at approximately $608,395.08. This represents a 12.92 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which can be accessed through this hyperlink. 4.93% of the stock is owned by insiders.

Institutional Inflows and Outflows

Large investors have recently bought and sold shares of the stock. Farallon Capital Management LLC boosted its stake in Agios Pharmaceuticals by 1.1% in the 2nd quarter. Farallon Capital Management LLC now owns 5,654,502 shares of the biopharmaceutical company’s stock valued at $243,822,000 after purchasing an additional 63,900 shares during the period. State Street Corp boosted its position in shares of Agios Pharmaceuticals by 10.2% in the third quarter. State Street Corp now owns 2,331,433 shares of the biopharmaceutical company’s stock valued at $103,586,000 after acquiring an additional 216,484 shares during the period. Erste Asset Management GmbH acquired a new position in shares of Agios Pharmaceuticals in the third quarter valued at about $97,199,000. Geode Capital Management LLC increased its position in Agios Pharmaceuticals by 0.5% during the third quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC now owns 1,357,531 shares of the biopharmaceutical company’s stock worth $60,326,000 after acquiring an additional 6,101 shares during the period. Finally, Marshall Wace LLP increased its position in Agios Pharmaceuticals by 307.8% during the second quarter. Marshall Wace LLP now owns 1,133,735 shares of the biopharmaceutical company’s stock worth $48,887,000 after acquiring an additional 855,739 shares during the period.

Agios Pharmaceuticals Company Profile

Agios Pharmaceuticals, Inc, a biopharmaceutical company, discovers and develops medicines in the field of cellular metabolism in the United States. Its lead product includes PYRUKYND (mitapivat), an activator of wild-type and mutant pyruvate kinase (PK), enzymes for the treatment of hemolytic anemias.