Geron (NASDAQ:GERN) Rating Reiterated by Needham & Company LLC

Geron (NASDAQ:GERN)‘s stock had its “buy” rating reissued by Needham & Company LLC in a research note issued to investors on Thursday, Benzinga reports. They currently have a $5.00 price target on the biopharmaceutical company’s stock. Needham & Company LLC’s target price points to a potential upside of 27.23% from the stock’s current price.

Several other equities analysts also recently issued reports on GERN. TD Cowen initiated coverage on shares of Geron in a report on Monday, April 29th. They set a “buy” rating and a $10.00 price target for the company. Robert W. Baird cut Geron from an “outperform” rating to a “neutral” rating and set a $4.50 price target for the company. in a report on Tuesday. Wedbush reiterated an “outperform” rating and set a $6.00 price target on shares of Geron in a research report on Wednesday, April 10th. Finally, The Goldman Sachs Group raised their price objective on shares of Geron from $4.00 to $5.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a research report on Friday, March 15th. One investment analyst has rated the stock with a hold rating and four have assigned a buy rating to the company’s stock. According to data from MarketBeat.com, the company presently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus price target of $6.10.

Geron Stock Performance

Geron stock traded down $0.02 on Thursday, hitting $3.93. The company’s stock had a trading volume of 8,439,272 shares, compared to its average volume of 11,742,055. The company has a fifty day moving average price of $3.10 and a 200-day moving average price of $2.38. The firm has a market cap of $2.15 billion, a P/E ratio of -11.23 and a beta of 0.55. Geron has a one year low of $1.64 and a one year high of $4.30. The company has a quick ratio of 3.16, a current ratio of 3.16 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.14.

Geron (NASDAQ:GERN) last posted its quarterly earnings results on Wednesday, February 28th. The biopharmaceutical company reported ($0.09) earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of ($0.10) by $0.01. Geron had a negative net margin of 38,730.00% and a negative return on equity of 72.19%. The firm had revenue of $0.02 million during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $0.06 million. During the same quarter in the prior year, the business posted ($0.10) earnings per share. The company’s quarterly revenue was down 77.7% compared to the same quarter last year. On average, equities analysts anticipate that Geron will post -0.33 earnings per share for the current year.

Institutional Trading of Geron

Hedge funds and other institutional investors have recently added to or reduced their stakes in the company. RA Capital Management L.P. boosted its stake in shares of Geron by 46.5% in the 3rd quarter. RA Capital Management L.P. now owns 46,202,425 shares of the biopharmaceutical company’s stock valued at $97,949,000 after purchasing an additional 14,657,619 shares during the last quarter. Vivo Capital LLC lifted its holdings in Geron by 12.8% in the first quarter. Vivo Capital LLC now owns 27,225,292 shares of the biopharmaceutical company’s stock valued at $89,843,000 after buying an additional 3,081,611 shares during the period. MPM Bioimpact LLC boosted its stake in Geron by 16.6% in the third quarter. MPM Bioimpact LLC now owns 10,712,481 shares of the biopharmaceutical company’s stock valued at $22,710,000 after acquiring an additional 1,521,191 shares during the last quarter. Wellington Management Group LLP grew its holdings in Geron by 3.4% during the 3rd quarter. Wellington Management Group LLP now owns 10,405,626 shares of the biopharmaceutical company’s stock worth $22,060,000 after acquiring an additional 342,493 shares during the period. Finally, Invesco Ltd. raised its position in shares of Geron by 20.8% during the 3rd quarter. Invesco Ltd. now owns 4,557,790 shares of the biopharmaceutical company’s stock valued at $9,663,000 after acquiring an additional 784,822 shares during the last quarter. 73.71% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

Geron Company Profile

Geron Corporation, a late-stage clinical biopharmaceutical company, focuses on the development and commercialization of therapeutics for myeloid hematologic malignancies. It develops imetelstat, a telomerase inhibitor that is in Phase 3 clinical trials, which inhibits the uncontrolled proliferation of malignant stem and progenitor cells in myeloid hematologic malignancies for the treatment of low or intermediate-1 risk myelodysplastic syndromes and intermediate-2 or high-risk myelofibrosis.