Boston, MA 08/13/2014 (wallstreetpr) – There are at least four brokerages, who have upgraded the shares of global biopharmaceutical company, Intercept Pharmaceuticals Inc (NASDAQ:ICPT). They have also boosted their price tag on the company’s stock. The action comes in the wake of the company announcing positive data on liver drug on Monday after the market closed.
Rating Of Stock
Deutsche Bank had upgraded the shares of Intercept Pharmaceuticals Inc (NASDAQ:ICPT) to Outperform rating. The brokerage had also lifted its price objective to $500 from $395 projected by it earlier. The revised target price indicates that there is a potential of over 66% from the price of $300.
Similarly, RBC Capital had also assigned its Outperform rating with the brokerage lifting its price tag to $500 from $425. Another brokerage, Leerink Swann also upgraded Intercept shares to Outperform rating from Market perform rating and lifted its price target to $445 from $270.
Nomura, one more investment advisor, had also boosted its rating to positive on Tuesday and lifted its price objective to $456.
The revised price target among the different brokerages indicates that the analysts’ have raised their price target on Intercept shares a minimum of 17.7% and a maximum of 64.8% from their previous price objective. However, the market rate and upward potentials are different.
Consensus Rating
The revision in the rating and price tag had become necessary for the brokerages to include the favorable news on liver drug. While ten analysts’ have rated the stock with a rating of Buy, only one analyst rates it as a hold. Therefore, the consensus is for Buy, and the average price objective was $503, which meant that there is over 60% upside potential based on the price of around $300.
CEO Sells Shares
Interestingly, Intercept Pharmaceuticals Inc (NASDAQ:ICPT) CEO Mark Pruzanski had sold 10K shares on August 1 at an average cost of $226.72. The sale had yielded $2.267 million for him, the company disclosed this in a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission or SEC. By selling the shares just a day before a major announcement, the CEO had lost about 25% if the price of $300 was taken for valuation purposes.
