Moderna
MRNA
$218.01
-7.82%
Moderna is a commercial-stage biotechnology company that pioneered mRNA-based medicines, with a portfolio spanning prophylactic vaccines (COVID-19, RSV, and an FDA-approved mRNA flu shot) and a deep clinical pipeline of 25 mRNA development candidates across infectious disease, oncology, cardiovascular disease, and rare genetic diseases. Once a pure pandemic-era vaccine story, Moderna is repositioning itself as a platform company whose mRNA engine can be redeployed across large, high-value therapeutic categories, with its partnership with Merck on an individualized neoantigen cancer therapy serving as the flagship proof point. The investor narrative has been transformed by the first-ever successful Phase 3 readout for an mRNA cancer vaccine (melanoma, announced August 2026), which reframed the stock from a post-COVID revenue-decline story into a potential oncology platform opportunity, triggering a parabolic re-rating. That enthusiasm is now colliding with a sobering fundamental reality — a still-unprofitable core vaccine business, steep cash burn, and analyst targets that sit far below the market price — making the debate about whether the cancer optionality justifies the valuation or whether the stock has run ahead of what the pipeline can deliver near term.…
MRNA
Moderna
$218.01
Related headlines
MRNA 12-Month Price Forecast
Wall Street consensus
Most Wall Street analysts maintain a constructive view on Moderna's 12-month outlook, with a consensus price target around $123.61 and implied upside of -43.3% versus the current price.
Average Target
$123.61
0 analysts
Implied Upside
-43.3%
vs. current price
Analyst Count
—
covering this stock
Price Range
$45 - $200
Analyst target range
Coverage is broad with 18 analysts, but sentiment is decidedly cautious: the consensus recommendation is "hold" with a mean rating of 2.87 (where 1 is strong buy and 5 is strong sell), and the average target price of $123.61 implies a staggering -43.3% downside from the current $218.01. This is a rare and important signal — the stock has run so far beyond analyst expectations that the consensus target sits less than 60% of the current price, meaning the market is pricing in catalysts that the sell-side has not yet incorporated into models. The distribution skews neutral-to-bearish, with recent actions including Rothschild & Co downgrading to Sell from Neutral (Sept 3), JP Morgan maintaining Underweight, and Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, and UBS all at Neutral/Equal Weight, while only Argus upgraded to Buy and William Blair to Outperform.
The target range is extraordinarily wide — from a low of $45.00 to a high of $200.00 — a 4.4x spread that signals profound disagreement about the cancer vaccine's probability of success and commercial potential. Notably, even the high target of $200 sits below the current price of $218.01, meaning not a single analyst on the street has a target that justifies the current valuation; the high case assumes full regulatory approval and rapid commercial ramp of the melanoma vaccine plus pipeline expansion, while the low case of $45 prices in continued COVID revenue decay, cash burn, and a dilutive financing. The recent upgrade/downgrade pattern is mixed but leans cautious, with more Neutral/Underweight actions than Buys, and the wide dispersion combined with the below-market average target suggests the stock is trading on momentum and narrative rather than analyst-validated fundamentals — a setup that historically precedes sharp mean-reversion when catalysts fade.
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Bulls vs Bears: MRNA Investment Factors
The bear case currently has stronger evidence on fundamentals: revenue is $145 million and barely growing, TTM FCF is -$1.223 billion, and the entire sell-side (18 analysts, average target $123.61) sits 43% below the current price. The bull case rests almost entirely on one extraordinary event — the first successful Phase 3 mRNA cancer vaccine — plus a balance sheet (current ratio 3.29, D/E 0.22) that buys roughly 18 months of runway. The single most important tension is whether the melanoma cancer vaccine converts into approved, reimbursed revenue fast enough to bridge the cash burn before a dilutive financing is required; that one variable, more than any other, determines whether $218 is a platform re-rating or a momentum bubble.
Bullish
- First-ever Phase 3 mRNA cancer vaccine win: The August 2026 positive Phase 3 melanoma readout with Merck is the first successful late-stage mRNA cancer vaccine trial in history, and it triggered the single-day move from $62.96 on Aug 18 to $174.38 on Aug 19. This validates the platform beyond COVID and creates a genuine oncology optionality that did not exist in models a year ago.
- Platform breadth across 25 clinical candidates: Moderna has 25 mRNA development candidates spanning infectious disease, oncology, cardiovascular and rare disease, plus an FDA-approved mRNA flu shot and an approved RSV vaccine. This diversification means the equity is no longer a single-product COVID bet, which is why the market has been willing to re-rate it despite a $145 million quarterly revenue base.
- Fortress balance sheet buys time: Current ratio of 3.29 and debt-to-equity of just 0.22, with $1.724 billion of cash at Q2 2026, give Moderna roughly 18 months of runway against a -$1.223 billion TTM free cash flow burn. Unlike many clinical-stage biotechs, there is no near-term solvency risk, so pipeline catalysts can play out without a forced distressed raise.
- Extreme momentum and relative strength: The stock is up 703.28% over one year and 606.45% YTD, with relative strength versus the S&P 500 of +687.75 points over 12 months against SPY's 15.53% gain. One-month performance of +49.71% is actually outpacing the three-month pace of +252.65%, confirming an accelerating rather than fading trend.
Bearish
- Every analyst target sits below the price: The average target of $123.61 implies -43.3% downside from $218.01, and even the highest target on the street ($200.00) is below the current price. Not a single one of the 18 covering analysts has a target that justifies today's valuation, and the consensus rating is 'hold' at 2.87.
- Revenue is collapsing, not growing: Q2 2026 revenue of $145 million was up only 2.11% YoY and down from $389 million in Q1 2026 and $678 million in Q4 2025; quarterly revenue has fallen from $1.855 billion in Q3 2024. The commercial base is shrinking even as the market cap has ballooned to $114.7 billion.
- Cash burn and capital destruction: TTM free cash flow is -$1.223 billion with -$526 million of operating cash flow in Q2 alone, ROE is -32.6% and ROA is -13.3%. The company spends roughly $870 million per quarter (R&D $651M + SG&A $216M) to generate $145 million of revenue, and cash fell from $2.595 billion at YE2025 to $1.724 billion.
- Valuation is a binary pipeline wager: With negative trailing PE (-4.06) and forward PE (-49.13), the stock trades at 40.65x EV/Sales versus a typical 5-10x biotech range, and 5.90x PS only looks 'cheap' versus a history that includes 241.6x in Q1 2024 when revenue was near zero. The premium is entirely a bet on cancer vaccine approval and ramp.
MRNA Technical Analysis
Moderna is in an extraordinary, almost vertical uptrend: the stock is up 703.28% over the past year and 606.45% year-to-date, and at $218.01 it sits at roughly 89% of its 52-week range (low $22.28, high $242.29) — just 10% below the high and nearly 10x off the low. This positioning signals powerful momentum but also meaningful overextension risk, since the entire move has been compressed into a handful of months and the stock has effectively repriced from a distressed value name into a momentum leader. The 52-week range itself (a 10.9x spread between low and high) is a testament to how violently the market's view of the company has shifted.
Short-term momentum is accelerating rather than fading: the stock is up 49.71% in the past month and 252.65% over three months, with the one-month gain actually outpacing the three-month average pace, confirming an accelerating trend rather than a decelerating one. Relative strength versus the S&P 500 is extreme — +48.49 points over one month, +249.96 over three months, and +687.75 over one year — against SPY's modest 1.22% and 15.53% respective gains, underscoring that this is an idiosyncratic, catalyst-driven move rather than a beta-driven rally. The most recent session, however, showed a sharp -7.82% reversal from the $236.50 prior close to $218.01 on heavy volume of 21.4 million shares, a potential first crack in momentum that warrants watching for a short-term blow-off top.
Key technical levels are the $242.29 52-week high as immediate resistance and the $22.28 52-week low as the distant structural floor, with the more relevant near-term support likely forming around the $180-190 area where the stock consolidated in late September. A breakout above $242.29 would signal the market is pricing in further pipeline catalysts (likely cancer vaccine regulatory progress), while a breakdown below $180 would suggest the post-Phase 3 euphoria is unwinding. With a beta of 1.095, the stock's market-relative volatility is only modestly above the S&P 500, but its realized volatility — evidenced by the -34.16% max drawdown and the 10.9x 52-week range — is far higher than beta implies, meaning position sizing should account for gap risk around binary clinical and regulatory events rather than relying on beta alone.
Beta
1.09
1.09x market volatility
Max Drawdown
-34.2%
Largest decline past year
52-Week Range
$22-$242
Price range past year
Annual Return
+703.3%
Cumulative gain past year
| Period | MRNA Return | S&P 500 |
|---|---|---|
| 1m | +49.7% | +0.2% |
| 3m | +252.7% | +2.9% |
| 6m | +305.8% | +8.4% |
| 1y | +703.3% | +14.9% |
| ytd | +606.4% | +11.9% |
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MRNA Fundamental Analysis
The revenue trajectory remains deeply challenged despite the stock's re-rating: Q2 2026 revenue was just $145 million, up only 2.11% year-over-year from $142 million, and down sharply from $389 million in Q1 2026 and $678 million in Q4 2025. The multi-quarter trend is one of secular decline in the COVID franchise — quarterly revenue has fallen from $1.855 billion in Q3 2024 to $145 million in Q2 2026 — with product sales of only $171 million in the latest period, and the sequential drop from Q1 to Q2 reflects the seasonal, non-recurring nature of respiratory vaccine demand. This means the entire investment case rests on future pipeline revenue (cancer vaccine, flu, RSV) rather than the current commercial base, and consensus FY revenue estimates of ~$7.56 billion imply a dramatic inflection that has not yet appeared in reported results.
Profitability is severely negative and deteriorating at the operating line: Q2 2026 net income was -$782 million (EPS -$1.96), with an operating margin of -562% and a net margin of -539%, while Q1 2026 was even worse at -$1.343 billion net loss (EPS -$3.40) on a gross margin of -145.5% due to a $955 million cost of revenue against just $389 million in sales. The trailing gross margin of 55.35% masks enormous quarterly volatility (Q2 2026 gross margin 35.86%, Q1 2026 -145.5%, Q4 2025 33.3%), reflecting inventory write-downs and underutilized manufacturing capacity. R&D remains the dominant cost at $651 million in Q2 2026 and $649 million in Q1 2026, and with SG&A of $216 million, the company is spending roughly $870 million per quarter to generate $145 million of revenue — a burn profile that is only sustainable if the pipeline delivers.
Balance sheet health is the one genuine bright spot: the current ratio is a strong 3.29, debt-to-equity is a conservative 0.22, and cash stood at $1.724 billion at the end of Q2 2026, though that is down from $2.595 billion at year-end 2025. Free cash flow is deeply negative — -$1.223 billion on a trailing basis, with -$563 million in Q2 2026 and -$692 million in Q1 2026 — and operating cash flow was -$526 million in Q2 alone, meaning the company is funding its pipeline from its balance sheet rather than from operations. ROE of -32.6% and ROA of -13.3% confirm the capital destruction, and with a cash balance of $1.7 billion against a ~$1.2 billion annual FCF burn, the company has roughly 18 months of runway before external financing (equity issuance or partnership milestones) becomes necessary — a critical risk given the stock's elevated price could actually facilitate a dilutive raise.
Quarterly Revenue
$145000000.0B
2026-06
Revenue YoY Growth
+2.1%
YoY Comparison
Gross Margin
35.9%
Latest Quarter
Free Cash Flow
$-1.2B
Last 12 Months
Revenue & Net Income Trends (2 Years)
Revenue Breakdown
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Valuation Analysis: Is MRNA Overvalued?
Because Moderna's trailing net income is negative (-$782 million in Q2 2026, EPS of -$0.25 on a TTM basis), the PE ratio is not meaningful — the trailing PE of -4.06 and forward PE of -49.13 are both artifacts of losses, so I am leading with the price-to-sales ratio of 5.90x and the EV/Sales multiple of 40.65x as the primary valuation anchors. The enormous gap between the 5.90x PS (based on TTM revenue) and the 40.65x EV/Sales (which appears to use a much smaller revenue base or enterprise value calculation) highlights how sensitive the valuation is to which revenue figure is used, and the forward PE of -49.13 versus the consensus FY EPS estimate of $3.42 implies the market expects a dramatic swing to profitability that has not yet materialized.
Against the biotechnology sector, Moderna's 5.90x PS is difficult to benchmark directly because most profitable large-cap biotechs trade on earnings, but the 40.65x EV/Sales is a steep premium to typical biotech multiples in the 5-10x range, reflecting the market's willingness to pay for the cancer vaccine optionality rather than current revenue. The 1.33x price-to-book is actually modest for a company with a validated platform, but that is because book value is being eroded by losses; the PEG ratio of 0.19 is misleading given the negative earnings base. On balance, the stock trades at a substantial premium to what its current commercial business justifies, and that premium is entirely a bet on pipeline success — a binary wager rather than a valuation supported by fundamentals.
Historically, Moderna's PS ratio has ranged from roughly 9.9x (Q3 2025) to 241.6x (Q1 2024) on a quarterly basis, with the current 5.90x sitting near the low end of that band — but this is deceptive, because the low PS reflects the collapse in revenue rather than a cheap valuation. The stock's price-to-book has ranged from 1.08x (Q3 2025) to 4.10x (Q2 2026), and at 1.33x it is in the lower-middle of that range, again reflecting book value erosion rather than value. The key takeaway is that traditional valuation bands offer little guidance here: the stock is not cheap on any cash-flow or earnings metric, and its current multiple is only "reasonable" relative to a history that includes periods of near-zero revenue.
PE
-4.1x
Latest Quarter
vs. Historical
Low-End
5-Year PE Range 5x~44x
vs. Industry Avg
N/A
Industry PE ~N/A*
EV/EBITDA
-4.2x
Enterprise Value Multiple
Investment Risk Disclosure
Financial and operational risks are severe and quantifiable. Moderna generated just $145 million of revenue in Q2 2026 against $867 million of operating expenses (R&D $651M, SG&A $216M), producing a -$782 million net loss and a -539% net margin, while Q1 2026 was worse at -$1.343 billion on a -145.5% gross margin driven by $955 million of cost of revenue against $389 million of sales. TTM free cash flow is -$1.223 billion and cash has fallen from $2.595 billion at YE2025 to $1.724 billion, implying roughly 18 months of runway before external financing is needed — and the elevated share price makes a dilutive equity raise both more likely and more tempting. Revenue concentration in a decaying COVID franchise (quarterly revenue down from $1.855 billion in Q3 2024 to $145 million) means the company must fund a 25-program pipeline from a shrinking base.
Market and competitive risks center on valuation compression. At 40.65x EV/Sales versus a typical 5-10x biotech range, and with a forward PE of -49.13 that depends on consensus EPS of $3.42 materializing from a current -$1.96 quarterly loss, the stock discounts near-perfect execution. Competition is intensifying: GSK's Phase 3 flu candidate threatens the newly approved mRNA flu shot, and BioNTech remains a direct cancer vaccine rival, while the beta of 1.095 understates realized volatility given the -34.16% max drawdown and 10.9x 52-week range. Recent coverage already flags the risk — Rothschild & Co downgraded to Sell on Sept 3, JP Morgan remains Underweight, and Motley Fool noted the stock has 'priced in a perfect cancer vaccine launch' with unfavorable risk/reward for new investors.
The worst-case scenario is a chain in which cancer vaccine regulatory review slips or the commercial ramp disappoints, the COVID/flu/RSV base keeps shrinking, and the ~$1.2 billion annual burn forces a large equity issuance at a lower price. In that path the stock would retrace toward the analyst low target of $45.00 — a -79% decline from $218.01 — with the 52-week low of $22.28 representing a -90% tail scenario if financing conditions tighten. Even a partial mean-reversion to the $123.61 average target implies roughly -43%, and the pre-catalyst August 2026 price of ~$63 shows how quickly the narrative premium can evaporate.
