Analyst Downgrades: Alexion Pharmaceuticals, Inc., WPX Energy Inc, and Godaddy Inc

Analysts downwardly revised their ratings and price targets on Alexion Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (ALXN), WPX Energy Inc (WPX), and Godaddy Inc (GDDY)

Jun 7, 2016 at 11:28 AM
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Analysts are weighing in on biopharmaceutical stock Alexion Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (NASDAQ:ALXN), oil-and-gas stock WPX Energy Inc (NYSE:WPX), and domain marketplace Godaddy Inc (NYSE:GDDY). Here's a quick roundup of today's bearish brokerage notes on ALXN, WPX, and GDDY.

  • ALXN is among the biotech stocks taking it on the chin today, down 11.5% at $137.11 -- on pace for its worst day in six years -- after its medication, Soliris, failed to meet goals during final-stage trials. Following the announcement, ALXN was hit with a slew of price-target cuts from no fewer than nine different brokerage firms, and the stock is now down 28% for the year. Alexion Pharmaceuticals, Inc.'s Schaeffer's put/call open interest ratio (SOIR) of 0.7 sits lower than 90% of all other readings from the past year, showing that near-term options players have rarely been more call-biased in the past 12 months. Analysts still haven't completely thrown ALXN to the wolves, either, as there isn't a single "sell" rating on the stock. An exodus of options bulls or additional negative analyst notes could exacerbate selling pressure on ALXN.

  • WPX shares are trading at $10.75, down 1.7%, but earlier tagged a year-to-date high of $11.18. Wunderlich cut its price target to $12 from $13, even though the company yesterday raised its full-year oil production guidance by 5%, and announced that it would be offering 49.5 million shares of common stock for sale to provide additional revenue and funding. WPX Energy Inc is still up 88% year-to-date, and has outperformed the S&P 500 Index (SPX) by 71.4 percentage points over the last 60 sessions. As such, WPX sports a 14-day Relative Strength Index (RSI) of 70 -- on the cusp of "overbought" territory, suggesting today's breather may have been in the cards. However, not everyone has bought in; 15% of WPX's float is currently sold short, up 14.1% over the last reporting period.

  • GDDY is down 3.2% at $31.91, after Citigroup cut its rating to "neutral" from "buy," just one day ahead of Godaddy Inc's annual shareholders meeting, and a week after Chief Marketing Officer Philip Bienert resigned. GDDY is now down 0.4% in 2016, and is facing familiar resistance in the overhead $33-$34 region. Wall Street seems skeptical, as the stock's 50-day put/call volume ratio at the International Securities Exchange (ISE), Chicago Board Options Exchange (CBOE) and NASDAQ OMX PHLX (PHLX) of 6.2 sits higher than 88% of all other readings from the past 12 months, indicating a bigger-than-usual bearish bias among options traders. Short interest in the stock has risen 42% over the past two reporting periods, and 5.6% of the stock's float is currently short sold -- an amount that would take over a week of trading, at GDDY's average daily volume, to cover.
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