Bio-Rad Laboratories, Inc. (NYSE:BIO) Receives Consensus Rating of “Hold” from Analysts

Bio-Rad Laboratories, Inc. (NYSE:BIO) has earned an average recommendation of “Hold” from the five ratings firms that are currently covering the firm, Marketbeat.com reports. One investment analyst has rated the stock with a sell recommendation, three have issued a hold recommendation and one has issued a buy recommendation on the company. The average 1 year target price among brokerages that have issued ratings on the stock in the last year is $303.3333.

BIO has been the subject of several recent analyst reports. Citigroup lowered shares of Bio-Rad Laboratories from a “buy” rating to a “neutral” rating and dropped their price objective for the stock from $375.00 to $300.00 in a report on Tuesday, April 7th. Royal Bank Of Canada initiated coverage on shares of Bio-Rad Laboratories in a report on Friday, May 15th. They set an “outperform” rating and a $320.00 price objective for the company. Wells Fargo & Company dropped their price objective on shares of Bio-Rad Laboratories from $320.00 to $290.00 and set an “equal weight” rating for the company in a report on Friday, May 1st. Finally, Weiss Ratings cut shares of Bio-Rad Laboratories from a “sell (d+)” rating to a “sell (d)” rating in a research note on Wednesday, May 6th.

Institutional Trading of Bio-Rad Laboratories

Several hedge funds have recently modified their holdings of BIO. Royal Bank of Canada grew its stake in shares of Bio-Rad Laboratories by 25.2% during the first quarter. Royal Bank of Canada now owns 30,310 shares of the medical research company’s stock valued at $7,382,000 after purchasing an additional 6,100 shares during the last quarter. Goldman Sachs Group Inc. grew its stake in shares of Bio-Rad Laboratories by 45.6% during the first quarter. Goldman Sachs Group Inc. now owns 105,006 shares of the medical research company’s stock valued at $25,575,000 after purchasing an additional 32,874 shares during the last quarter. Empowered Funds LLC grew its stake in shares of Bio-Rad Laboratories by 14.8% during the first quarter. Empowered Funds LLC now owns 1,547 shares of the medical research company’s stock valued at $377,000 after purchasing an additional 199 shares during the last quarter. Jane Street Group LLC grew its stake in shares of Bio-Rad Laboratories by 95.3% during the first quarter. Jane Street Group LLC now owns 37,383 shares of the medical research company’s stock valued at $9,105,000 after purchasing an additional 18,239 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Cetera Investment Advisers boosted its stake in Bio-Rad Laboratories by 13.5% in the second quarter. Cetera Investment Advisers now owns 2,192 shares of the medical research company’s stock valued at $529,000 after acquiring an additional 260 shares during the last quarter. 65.24% of the stock is owned by institutional investors.

Bio-Rad Laboratories Stock Performance

NYSE BIO opened at $271.10 on Wednesday. The firm has a market cap of $7.25 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 44.66 and a beta of 1.08. The company has a 50 day moving average of $284.45 and a 200-day moving average of $288.90. The company has a current ratio of 3.21, a quick ratio of 2.37 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.12. Bio-Rad Laboratories has a 1-year low of $235.01 and a 1-year high of $343.12.

Bio-Rad Laboratories (NYSE:BIO) last posted its quarterly earnings data on Thursday, April 30th. The medical research company reported $1.89 earnings per share for the quarter, missing the consensus estimate of $1.97 by ($0.08). The firm had revenue of $592.10 million for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $589.91 million. Bio-Rad Laboratories had a return on equity of 3.56% and a net margin of 6.52%.The business’s quarterly revenue was up 1.1% on a year-over-year basis. During the same period in the previous year, the business posted $2.54 EPS. On average, equities analysts forecast that Bio-Rad Laboratories will post 9.42 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Bio-Rad Laboratories Company Profile

Bio-Rad Laboratories, Inc is a global provider of life science research and clinical diagnostic products. The company operates through two primary business segments: Life Science and Clinical Diagnostics. Within the Life Science segment, Bio-Rad offers instruments, reagents and consumables for protein analysis, cell biology, gene expression and other molecular biology applications. The Clinical Diagnostics segment supplies quality control products, blood-typing reagents and instruments, and molecular diagnostic assays used in blood screening, infectious disease testing and routine clinical laboratories.

Founded in 1952 by David and Alice Schwartz and headquartered in Hercules, California, Bio-Rad has grown its footprint across the Americas, Europe, Asia-Pacific and other regions.