What happened
Novavax (NVAX 2.34%) saw its shares wilt on Wednesday, due in no small part to a fairly deep price-target cut from an analyst. When the smoke cleared, the biotech's stock fell more than 7% in price on the day.
So what
That morning, B. Riley prognosticator Mayank Mamtani took a big pair of scissors to his Novavax price target. The analyst now believes the company is worth $265 per share, down quite some distance from the previous $315. Despite that big change, Mamtani still rates the stock a buy.
Mamtani's adjustment comes mere days before Novavax is slated to unveil its Q4 earnings. In a new research note, he expressed concern about "choppiness" to existing estimates. The company is rolling out its NVX-CoV2373 coronavirus vaccine -- also known as Nuvaxovid -- to different jurisdictions in which it's been either authorized or approved.
The largest of these is the 27-country European Union. On Wednesday, Novavax announced that it has begun shipping the jab to the region.
Image source: Getty Images.
It said that its product "provides a differentiated option to bolster vaccination rates across Europe." Nuvaxovid is a protein-based vaccine, in contrast to the popular mRNA-harnessing jabs from peers Moderna and the partnership of Pfizer and BioNTech.
Now what
We'll get a clearer picture of the state of Novavax on Monday, Feb. 28, the day the company is scheduled to publish and discuss those Q4 and full-year 2021 figures.
On average, analysts tracking the biotech's stock are expecting improvements. Collectively, they're modeling nearly $332 million in revenue for the quarter (versus just under $280 million in Q4 2020), and a narrower per-share net income loss of $1.80 from the year-ago shortfall of $2.70.
