Qiagen N.V. $QGEN Shares Sold by Edgestream Partners L.P.

Edgestream Partners L.P. reduced its position in shares of Qiagen N.V. (NYSE:QGEN) by 47.6% in the 1st quarter, according to the company in its most recent disclosure with the Securities & Exchange Commission. The firm owned 92,571 shares of the company’s stock after selling 84,199 shares during the period. Edgestream Partners L.P.’s holdings in Qiagen were worth $3,707,000 as of its most recent filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission.

A number of other institutional investors have also modified their holdings of the company. Boston Partners acquired a new position in Qiagen during the 3rd quarter worth about $179,450,000. Norges Bank acquired a new position in Qiagen in the 4th quarter valued at about $166,500,000. Dimensional Fund Advisors LP acquired a new position in Qiagen in the 3rd quarter valued at about $58,079,000. Price T Rowe Associates Inc. MD grew its position in Qiagen by 12.1% in the 4th quarter. Price T Rowe Associates Inc. MD now owns 8,429,424 shares of the company’s stock valued at $379,072,000 after acquiring an additional 906,589 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Deutsche Bank AG increased its stake in Qiagen by 9.7% during the fourth quarter. Deutsche Bank AG now owns 7,907,801 shares of the company’s stock worth $355,614,000 after purchasing an additional 697,342 shares during the period. 70.00% of the stock is owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

QGEN has been the subject of several recent research reports. Robert W. Baird set a $43.00 price objective on shares of Qiagen and gave the company an “outperform” rating in a research note on Wednesday, April 29th. JPMorgan Chase & Co. cut their target price on shares of Qiagen from $60.00 to $45.00 and set an “overweight” rating on the stock in a research note on Wednesday, April 29th. Stifel Nicolaus set a $36.00 target price on shares of Qiagen and gave the stock a “hold” rating in a report on Monday, May 18th. Zacks Research raised shares of Qiagen from a “strong sell” rating to a “hold” rating in a research report on Wednesday, April 29th. Finally, Kepler Capital Markets set a $38.60 price target on shares of Qiagen and gave the stock a “hold” rating in a research note on Thursday, June 25th. One analyst has rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, four have given a Buy rating, eight have assigned a Hold rating and one has issued a Sell rating to the company’s stock. According to MarketBeat.com, the stock presently has a consensus rating of “Hold” and an average target price of $43.34.

Qiagen Price Performance

Shares of NYSE QGEN opened at $41.56 on Friday. The stock has a market cap of $8.56 billion, a P/E ratio of 21.70, a P/E/G ratio of 4.13 and a beta of 0.64. Qiagen N.V. has a twelve month low of $32.53 and a twelve month high of $57.81. The stock has a 50 day moving average of $38.82 and a two-hundred day moving average of $41.88. The company has a current ratio of 3.21, a quick ratio of 2.57 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.49.

Qiagen (NYSE:QGEN) last announced its earnings results on Thursday, May 7th. The company reported $0.54 EPS for the quarter, meeting analysts’ consensus estimates of $0.54. Qiagen had a net margin of 19.16% and a return on equity of 14.40%. The business had revenue of $492.32 million for the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $496.15 million. During the same period in the previous year, the company posted $0.56 EPS. On average, research analysts forecast that Qiagen N.V. will post 2.43 earnings per share for the current year.

Qiagen Increases Dividend

The business also recently declared an annual dividend, which was paid on Tuesday, July 14th. Investors of record on Tuesday, July 7th were issued a dividend of $0.35 per share. This is an increase from Qiagen’s previous annual dividend of $0.26. This represents a dividend yield of 90.0%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Tuesday, July 7th. Qiagen’s dividend payout ratio is 18.32%.

Qiagen 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.