Guardant Health (NASDAQ:GH) CEO Amirali Talasaz Sells 50,000 Shares of Stock

Guardant Health, Inc. (NASDAQ:GH) CEO Amirali Talasaz sold 50,000 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Tuesday, May 12th. The stock was sold at an average price of $100.32, for a total transaction of $5,016,000.00. Following the transaction, the chief executive officer directly owned 2,096,504 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $210,321,281.28. This represents a 2.33% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which is available through the SEC website. The transaction was executed under a pre-arranged Rule 10b5-1 trading plan.

Guardant Health Trading Down 1.5%

GH opened at $98.47 on Thursday. Guardant Health, Inc. has a 12-month low of $36.36 and a 12-month high of $120.74. The firm has a market capitalization of $13.06 billion, a PE ratio of -29.05 and a beta of 1.48. The firm has a 50 day moving average of $89.16 and a two-hundred day moving average of $97.74.

Guardant Health (NASDAQ:GH) last posted its quarterly earnings results on Thursday, February 19th. The company reported ($0.50) earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, missing analysts’ consensus estimates of ($0.43) by ($0.07). The business had revenue of $281.27 million for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $269.74 million. During the same period in the previous year, the company earned ($0.62) earnings per share. The company’s revenue was up 39.4% compared to the same quarter last year. As a group, analysts predict that Guardant Health, Inc. will post -2.87 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Institutional Investors Weigh In On Guardant Health

Several institutional investors and hedge funds have recently added to or reduced their stakes in the business. Allworth Financial LP raised its holdings in shares of Guardant Health by 19.5% during the 3rd quarter. Allworth Financial LP now owns 844 shares of the company’s stock worth $53,000 after acquiring an additional 138 shares during the period. Eastern Bank raised its holdings in shares of Guardant Health by 6.9% during the 4th quarter. Eastern Bank now owns 2,160 shares of the company’s stock worth $221,000 after acquiring an additional 139 shares during the period. First Pacific Financial raised its holdings in shares of Guardant Health by 33.1% during the 1st quarter. First Pacific Financial now owns 559 shares of the company’s stock worth $52,000 after acquiring an additional 139 shares during the period. TD Waterhouse Canada Inc. raised its holdings in shares of Guardant Health by 3.2% during the 3rd quarter. TD Waterhouse Canada Inc. now owns 4,891 shares of the company’s stock worth $306,000 after acquiring an additional 151 shares during the period. Finally, Xponance LLC raised its holdings in shares of Guardant Health by 2.1% during the 4th quarter. Xponance LLC now owns 9,630 shares of the company’s stock worth $984,000 after acquiring an additional 199 shares during the period. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 92.60% of the company’s stock.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

A number of brokerages have recently commented on GH. Barclays raised their price objective on shares of Guardant Health from $115.00 to $120.00 and gave the stock an “overweight” rating in a research note on Friday, May 8th. JPMorgan Chase & Co. raised their price objective on shares of Guardant Health from $130.00 to $135.00 and gave the stock an “overweight” rating in a research note on Friday, May 8th. Wells Fargo & Company raised their price objective on shares of Guardant Health from $120.00 to $125.00 and gave the stock an “overweight” rating in a research note on Friday, February 20th. Raymond James Financial reissued an “outperform” rating and issued a $129.00 price target on shares of Guardant Health in a research note on Monday, February 23rd. Finally, Stifel Nicolaus lifted their price target on shares of Guardant Health from $120.00 to $130.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a research note on Friday, February 20th. Nineteen research analysts have rated the stock with a Buy rating, one has issued a Hold rating and one has issued a Sell rating to the company. Based on data from MarketBeat, the stock has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus price target of $129.42.

Guardant Health Company Profile

Guardant Health, Inc is a precision oncology company specializing in blood-based cancer diagnostics. Founded in 2012 and headquartered in Redwood City, California, the company develops non-invasive tests that use circulating tumor DNA (ctDNA) to profile genomic alterations in patients with solid tumors. Guardant Health’s mission is to advance cancer care by providing actionable data to clinicians, pharmaceutical partners and researchers worldwide.

The company’s flagship product, Guardant360, is a next-generation sequencing (NGS) assay designed to detect mutations, copy number variations and select fusions in more than 70 cancer-related genes.