Sarepta Therapeutics, today's IBD 50 Stocks To Watch profile, is making strides as the company releases new data for its gene therapies. Meanwhile, the biotech stock and gene therapy technology play is building a new base.
Sarepta had its Relative Strength (RS) Rating upgraded from 82 to 94 last week. The midcap growth stock is forming a cup base with a 89.65 buy point. In recent weeks, shares easily cleared the 50-day and 200-day moving averages, according to MarketSmith pattern recognition.
When looking for the best stocks to buy and watch, one factor to watch closely is relative price strength. IBD's proprietary RS Rating identifies market leadership by using a 1 (worst) to 99 (best) score that indicates how a stock's price performance over the last 52 weeks matches up against all other stocks in our database.
Decades of market research shows that the best-performing stocks tend to have an 80 or better RS Rating in the early stages of their moves. SRPT stock has a strong Composite Rating of 94.
See if the IBD 50 stock can clear the breakout price in volume at least 40% above average.
Biotech Stock Sarepta Looks To FDA For Approval
The bottom line improved from a net loss of $1.44 a year ago to a loss of 56 cents in Q1. Revenue rose 43%. The company's sales have been trending higher, to $211 million, in the quarter ended March 2022, up 43% from $147 million in the previous year and $113 million in fiscal 2020.
Look for the next report to arrive around Aug. 3. Analysts surveyed by Yahoo Finance expect the company to report a loss of $1.18 a share. The reported EPS for the same quarter last year was a loss of $1.02, while MarketSmith recorded a net loss of $1.52. The stock has a low 52 EPS Rating.
For sales, analysts expect the company to report $221 million for the quarter and $900 million for all of 2022.
Sarepta and its partner Roche presented new results this month at the International Congress on Neuromuscular Diseases (ICNMD). The companies say data demonstrates that their muscular dystrophy gene therapy consistently and significantly improve the functional benefits in individuals with Duchenne muscular dystrophy.
Sarepta hopes to use that data to persuade the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to speed review of its SRP-9001 gene therapy.
Sarepta earns the No. 23 rank among its peers in IBD's biotech stock industry group, according to IBD Stock Checkup. Fellow biotech stock Amphastar Pharmaceuticals and Vertex Pharmaceuticals are among the top five highly rated stocks within the group.
Follow Michael Molinski on Twitter @IMmolinski
