How to buy Ligand Pharmaceuticals Incorporated shares

Ligand Pharmaceuticals Incorporated (LGND) is a leading biotechnology business with stocks listed in the US. It opened the day at US$147.3 after a previous close of US$150.21. During the day the price has varied from a low of USD143.16 to a high of USD153.72. The latest price was USD148.22 (25 minute delay). Ligand Pharmaceuticals Incorporated is listed on the NASDAQ. All prices are listed in US Dollars.

How to buy shares in Ligand Pharmaceuticals Incorporated

1. Compare share trading platforms. To buy shares in a US company from Australia you'll need to find a trading platform that offers access to US stock markets. If you're just starting out, look for a platform with low brokerage and foreign exchange fees.
2. Open and fund your brokerage account. Complete an application with your personal and financial details, like your ID and tax file number. Fund your account with a bank transfer, credit card or debit card.
3. Search for Ligand Pharmaceuticals Incorporated. Find the share by name or ticker symbol: LGND. Research its history to confirm it's a solid investment against your financial goals.
4. Purchase now or later. Buy today with a market order or use a limit order to delay your purchase until Ligand Pharmaceuticals Incorporated reaches your desired price. To spread out your risk, look into dollar-cost averaging, which smooths out buying at consistent intervals and amounts.
5. Decide on how many to buy. At last close price of US$150.21, weigh your budget against a diversified portfolio that can minimise risk through the market's ups and downs. You may be able to buy a fractional share of Ligand Pharmaceuticals Incorporated, depending on your broker.
6. Check in on your investment. Congratulations, you own a part of Ligand Pharmaceuticals Incorporated. Optimise your portfolio by tracking how your stock — and even the business — performs with an eye on the long term. You may be eligible for dividends and shareholder voting rights on directors and management that can affect your stock.

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Ligand Pharmaceuticals Incorporated share price

Use our graph to track the performance of LGND stocks over time.

Ligand Pharmaceuticals Incorporated shares at a glance

• Live prices
• Key figures

Information last updated 2021-02-26.

Open	US$147.3
High	US$153.72
Low	US$143.16
Close	US$148.22
Previous close	US$150.21
Change	US$-1.99
Change %	-1.3248%
Volume	297,773

Information last updated 2021-02-23.

52-week range	US$57.24 - US$219.75
50-day moving average	US$150.9527
200-day moving average	US$109.5817
Target price	US$224.67
PE ratio	4161
Dividend yield	N/A (0%)
Earnings per share (TTM)	US$28.289

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The value of your investments can fall as well as rise and you may get back less than you invested. Past performance is no indication of future results.

Is it a good time to buy Ligand Pharmaceuticals Incorporated stock?

The technical analysis gauge below displays real-time ratings for the timeframes you select. This is not a recommendation, however. It represents a technical analysis based on the most popular technical indicators: Moving Averages, Oscillators and Pivots. Finder might not concur and takes no responsibility.

Technical Analysis of Ligand Pharmaceuticals Incorporated by TradingView

Ligand Pharmaceuticals Incorporated price performance over time

Historical closes compared with the close of $148.22 on 2021-02-25

1 week (2021-02-19)	3.74%
1 month (2021-01-26)	-5.51%
3 months (2020-11-25)	69.57%
6 months (2020-08-26)	40.67%

1 year (2020-02-26)	44.44%
2 years (2019-02-26)	19.70%
3 years (2018-02-26)	-2.88%
5 years (2016-02-26)	52.36%

Is Ligand Pharmaceuticals Incorporated under- or over-valued?

Valuing Ligand Pharmaceuticals Incorporated stock is incredibly difficult, and any metric has to be viewed as part of a bigger picture of Ligand Pharmaceuticals Incorporated's overall performance. However, analysts commonly use some key metrics to help gauge the value of a stock.

Ligand Pharmaceuticals Incorporated's P/E ratio

Ligand Pharmaceuticals Incorporated's current share price divided by its per-share earnings (EPS) over a 12-month period gives a "trailing price/earnings ratio" of roughly 4161x. In other words, Ligand Pharmaceuticals Incorporated shares trade at around 4161x recent earnings.

That's relatively high compared to, say, the trailing 12-month P/E ratio for the NASDAQ 100 at the end of 2019 (27.29). The high P/E ratio could mean that investors are optimistic about the outlook for the shares or simply that they're over-valued.

Ligand Pharmaceuticals Incorporated's PEG ratio

Ligand Pharmaceuticals Incorporated's "price/earnings-to-growth ratio" can be calculated by dividing its P/E ratio by its growth – to give 1.6296. A low ratio can be interpreted as meaning the shares offer better value, while a higher ratio can be interpreted as meaning the shares offer worse value.

The PEG ratio provides a broader view than just the P/E ratio, as it gives more insight into Ligand Pharmaceuticals Incorporated's future profitability. By accounting for growth, it could also help you if you're comparing the share prices of multiple high-growth companies.

Ligand Pharmaceuticals Incorporated's EBITDA

Ligand Pharmaceuticals Incorporated's EBITDA (earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortisation) is US$50.8 million (£0.0 million).

The EBITDA is a measure of a Ligand Pharmaceuticals Incorporated's overall financial performance and is widely used to measure a its profitability.

Ligand Pharmaceuticals Incorporated financials

Revenue TTM	US$186.4 million
Operating margin TTM	16.41%
Gross profit TTM	US$96.6 million
Return on assets TTM	1.34%
Return on equity TTM	-0.4%
Profit margin	-1.6%
Book value	44.133
Market capitalisation	US$2.3 billion

TTM: trailing 12 months

Shorting Ligand Pharmaceuticals Incorporated shares

There are currently 6.0 million Ligand Pharmaceuticals Incorporated shares held short by investors – that's known as Ligand Pharmaceuticals Incorporated's "short interest". This figure is 40.4% down from 10.0 million last month.

There are a few different ways that this level of interest in shorting Ligand Pharmaceuticals Incorporated shares can be evaluated.

Ligand Pharmaceuticals Incorporated's "short interest ratio" (SIR)

Ligand Pharmaceuticals Incorporated's "short interest ratio" (SIR) is the quantity of Ligand Pharmaceuticals Incorporated shares currently shorted divided by the average quantity of Ligand Pharmaceuticals Incorporated shares traded daily (recently around 871463.94160584). Ligand Pharmaceuticals Incorporated's SIR currently stands at 6.85. In other words for every 100,000 Ligand Pharmaceuticals Incorporated shares traded daily on the market, roughly 6850 shares are currently held short.

However Ligand Pharmaceuticals Incorporated's short interest can also be evaluated against the total number of Ligand Pharmaceuticals Incorporated shares, or, against the total number of tradable Ligand Pharmaceuticals Incorporated shares (the shares that aren't held by "insiders" or major long-term shareholders – also known as the "float"). In this case Ligand Pharmaceuticals Incorporated's short interest could be expressed as 0.37% of the outstanding shares (for every 100,000 Ligand Pharmaceuticals Incorporated shares in existence, roughly 370 shares are currently held short) or 0.6414% of the tradable shares (for every 100,000 tradable Ligand Pharmaceuticals Incorporated shares, roughly 641 shares are currently held short).

A SIR below 10% would generally be considered to indicate a fairly optimistic outlook for the share price, with fewer people currently willing to bet against Ligand Pharmaceuticals Incorporated.

Find out more about how you can short Ligand Pharmaceuticals Incorporated stock.

Ligand Pharmaceuticals Incorporated share dividends

We're not expecting Ligand Pharmaceuticals Incorporated to pay a dividend over the next 12 months.

Have Ligand Pharmaceuticals Incorporated's shares ever split?

Ligand Pharmaceuticals Incorporated's shares were split on a 1:6 basis on 19 November 2010. So if you had owned 6 shares the day before before the split, the next day you'd have owned 1 share. This wouldn't directly have changed the overall worth of your Ligand Pharmaceuticals Incorporated shares – just the quantity. However, indirectly, the new 500% higher share price could have impacted the market appetite for Ligand Pharmaceuticals Incorporated shares which in turn could have impacted Ligand Pharmaceuticals Incorporated's share price.

Ligand Pharmaceuticals Incorporated share price volatility

Over the last 12 months, Ligand Pharmaceuticals Incorporated's shares have ranged in value from as little as US$57.24 up to US$219.75. A popular way to gauge a stock's volatility is its "beta".

Beta is a measure of a share's volatility in relation to the market. The market (NASDAQ average) beta is 1, while Ligand Pharmaceuticals Incorporated's is 1.2716. This would suggest that Ligand Pharmaceuticals Incorporated's shares are more volatile than the average for this exchange and represent, relatively-speaking, a higher risk (but potentially also market-beating returns).

Ligand Pharmaceuticals Incorporated overview

Ligand Pharmaceuticals Incorporated, a biopharmaceutical company, focuses on developing and acquiring technologies that help pharmaceutical companies to discover and develop medicines worldwide. The company's commercial programs include Promacta, an oral medicine that increases the number of platelets in the blood; Kyprolis and Evomela, which are used to treat multiple myeloma; Baxdela, a captisol-enabled delafloxacin-IV for the treatment of acute bacterial skin and skin structure infections; Nexterone, a captisol-enabled formulation of amiodarone; Noxafil-IV, a captisol-enabled formulation of posaconazole for IV use; and Carnexiv, which is indicated as replacement therapy for oral carbamazepine formulations. It also offers bazedoxifene for the treatment of postmenopausal osteoporosis; Aziyo portfolio of commercial pericardial repair and CanGaroo envelope extracellular matrix products; Exemptia for autoimmune diseases; Vivitra for breast cancer; Minnebro for the treatment of hypertension; and Bryxta for non-small cell lung cancer. The company's partners programs, which are in clinical development used for the treatment of cancer, seizure, diabetes, cardiovascular disease, muscle wasting, liver disease, and kidney, and other diseases. It is also developing a small molecule glucagon receptor antagonist for the treatment of Type 2 diabetes mellitus. In addition, the company is involved in the sale of Captisol materials. Ligand Pharmaceuticals Incorporated was founded in 1987 and is headquartered in San Diego, California.

Frequently asked questions

• What percentage of Ligand Pharmaceuticals Incorporated is owned by insiders or institutions?

  Currently 4.214% of Ligand Pharmaceuticals Incorporated shares are held by insiders and 146.127% by institutions.

• When does the fiscal year end for Ligand Pharmaceuticals Incorporated?

  Ligand Pharmaceuticals Incorporated's fiscal year ends in December.

• Where is Ligand Pharmaceuticals Incorporated based?

  Ligand Pharmaceuticals Incorporated's address is: 3911 Sorrento Valley Boulevard, San Diego, CA, United States, 92121

• What is Ligand Pharmaceuticals Incorporated's ISIN number?

  Ligand Pharmaceuticals Incorporated's international securities identification number is: US53220K5048

• What is Ligand Pharmaceuticals Incorporated's CUSIP number?

  Ligand Pharmaceuticals Incorporated's Committee on Uniform Securities Identification Procedures number is: 53220K173