Shares of molecular diagnostics company Exact Sciences Corporation (EXAS) are up 28.43% pre-market at $12.06, despite Mizuho’s Eric Criscuolo this morning keeping a ‘Neutral’ rating on the name with a $6.50 price target, writing that yesterday’s 33% jump in EXAS stock was without a clear catalyst. The analysts contends that the spike may be attributed to an updated U.S. Preventive Services Task Force [USPSTF] webpage for the co.’s colon cancer screening recommendation. Criscuolo notes however, that while the web page title read: “Final Update Summary“, the information on the page appears largely the same as the previous Draft Recommendations, and that none of the pertinent links, such as the “Full Recommendation Summary” were active. At the same time, Mizuho’s analyst notes that the page lists June 2016 as a release date, indicating that perhaps final recommendations will be released shortly. Criscuolo says that while a favorable change for Exact Sciences in the final recommendations could happen, he remains cautious, asking investors to recall that last year, the USPSTF issued draft recommendations that fell significantly below expectations for EXAS.
Price Action
Exact Sciences shares have advanced 65.32% in the last 4 weeks and 52.44% in the past three months. Over the past 5 trading sessions the stock has gained 31.15%.
The $918.27 million market cap Madison, Wisconsin-based company has a median Street price target of $7.00 with a high target of $13.00.
Exact Sciences Corp. is down 64.21% year-over-year, compared with a 1.20% loss in the S&P 500.
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