64,200 Shares in Qiagen N.V. $QGEN Bought by Retirement Systems of Alabama

Retirement Systems of Alabama bought a new stake in Qiagen N.V. (NYSE:QGEN) during the third quarter, according to the company in its most recent Form 13F filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission. The institutional investor bought 64,200 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $2,868,000.

Several other institutional investors and hedge funds have also bought and sold shares of QGEN. Amalgamated Bank increased its position in shares of Qiagen by 1.8% during the 2nd quarter. Amalgamated Bank now owns 11,751 shares of the company’s stock valued at $565,000 after purchasing an additional 209 shares during the last quarter. Atria Investments Inc increased its holdings in Qiagen by 2.9% during the second quarter. Atria Investments Inc now owns 7,674 shares of the company’s stock valued at $369,000 after buying an additional 218 shares during the last quarter. ANTIPODES PARTNERS Ltd raised its position in Qiagen by 9.4% in the second quarter. ANTIPODES PARTNERS Ltd now owns 2,566 shares of the company’s stock worth $123,000 after acquiring an additional 221 shares during the period. Yousif Capital Management LLC raised its position in Qiagen by 3.7% in the second quarter. Yousif Capital Management LLC now owns 6,257 shares of the company’s stock worth $301,000 after acquiring an additional 222 shares during the period. Finally, Covestor Ltd boosted its stake in shares of Qiagen by 13.6% during the 3rd quarter. Covestor Ltd now owns 3,007 shares of the company’s stock worth $134,000 after acquiring an additional 361 shares during the last quarter. 70.00% of the stock is owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

Several research firms have recently commented on QGEN. Citigroup lowered Qiagen from a “buy” rating to a “neutral” rating and reduced their price objective for the stock from $57.89 to $52.63 in a research note on Thursday, December 11th. UBS Group restated a “neutral” rating on shares of Qiagen in a research report on Wednesday, January 21st. Wall Street Zen cut Qiagen from a “buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a research report on Saturday, January 10th. Deutsche Bank Aktiengesellschaft lowered shares of Qiagen from a “buy” rating to a “hold” rating and increased their target price for the stock from $52.00 to $54.00 in a report on Thursday, January 22nd. Finally, Barclays reaffirmed an “overweight” rating and set a $57.89 price target (up previously from $55.79) on shares of Qiagen in a report on Monday, December 15th. Two research analysts have rated the stock with a Buy rating and seven have issued a Hold rating to the company. According to MarketBeat.com, the company has a consensus rating of “Hold” and a consensus target price of $53.04.

Qiagen Stock Performance

NYSE:QGEN opened at $53.63 on Friday. The stock has a 50-day moving average price of $49.53 and a 200 day moving average price of $49.64. The stock has a market capitalization of $11.33 billion, a P/E ratio of 27.69, a P/E/G ratio of 2.56 and a beta of 0.66. Qiagen N.V. has a 12-month low of $39.61 and a 12-month high of $57.81. The company has a current ratio of 2.60, a quick ratio of 2.30 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.45.

Qiagen (NYSE:QGEN) last posted its quarterly earnings results on Thursday, November 6th. The company reported $0.64 EPS for the quarter, topping analysts’ consensus estimates of $0.61 by $0.03. Qiagen had a return on equity of 14.80% and a net margin of 19.58%.The company had revenue of $532.58 million for the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $525.68 million. During the same period in the previous year, the firm earned $0.60 EPS. The firm’s revenue was up 6.2% compared to the same quarter last year. Equities research analysts forecast that Qiagen N.V. will post 2.26 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Qiagen Company Profile

Qiagen NV (NYSE: QGEN) is a global provider of sample and assay technologies designed to enable molecular testing in the fields of molecular diagnostics, applied testing, academic research and pharmaceutical development. The company’s solutions span the full workflow of nucleic acid and protein analysis, offering customers standardized kits, instruments and software tools that streamline the preparation, detection and quantification of DNA, RNA and proteins.

The company’s product portfolio includes nucleic acid extraction and purification systems, polymerase chain reaction (PCR) reagents and instrumentation, digital PCR platforms, next-generation sequencing (NGS) library‐preparation kits and proteomics solutions.