Geron Co. (NASDAQ:GERN) CEO John A. Scarlett Acquires 12,500 Shares of Stock

Geron Co. (NASDAQ:GERN) CEO John A. Scarlett acquired 12,500 shares of Geron stock in a transaction dated Thursday, February 27th. The stock was bought at an average price of $1.76 per share, for a total transaction of $22,000.00. Following the completion of the transaction, the chief executive officer now directly owns 12,500 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $22,000. This represents a ? increase in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available at this hyperlink.

Geron Stock Performance

Shares of NASDAQ:GERN opened at $1.71 on Tuesday. The firm has a market capitalization of $1.03 billion, a PE ratio of -5.34 and a beta of 0.53. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.04, a current ratio of 2.89 and a quick ratio of 2.74. The business has a 50-day moving average of $2.93 and a two-hundred day moving average of $3.76. Geron Co. has a 12 month low of $1.46 and a 12 month high of $5.34.

Geron (NASDAQ:GERN) last announced its quarterly earnings results on Wednesday, February 26th. The biopharmaceutical company reported ($0.04) EPS for the quarter, hitting the consensus estimate of ($0.04). The company had revenue of $47.54 million during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $45.29 million. Geron had a negative return on equity of 67.53% and a negative net margin of 682.48%. As a group, research analysts forecast that Geron Co. will post -0.25 earnings per share for the current year.

Institutional Investors Weigh In On Geron

Large investors have recently modified their holdings of the stock. RTW Investments LP acquired a new stake in shares of Geron in the third quarter valued at about $200,268,000. Nvest Financial LLC acquired a new stake in shares of Geron in the fourth quarter valued at about $693,000. Janus Henderson Group PLC grew its stake in shares of Geron by 140.0% in the third quarter. Janus Henderson Group PLC now owns 22,565,846 shares of the biopharmaceutical company’s stock valued at $102,193,000 after buying an additional 13,163,889 shares in the last quarter. Barclays PLC grew its stake in shares of Geron by 114.9% in the third quarter. Barclays PLC now owns 1,299,912 shares of the biopharmaceutical company’s stock valued at $5,902,000 after buying an additional 694,931 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Intech Investment Management LLC acquired a new stake in shares of Geron in the third quarter valued at about $1,102,000. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 73.71% of the company’s stock.

Wall Street Analyst Weigh In

GERN has been the topic of several recent research reports. Scotiabank reduced their price objective on Geron from $6.00 to $4.00 and set a “sector outperform” rating on the stock in a research report on Thursday, February 27th. HC Wainwright lowered Geron from a “buy” rating to a “neutral” rating in a research note on Wednesday, February 26th. Needham & Company LLC dropped their target price on Geron from $7.00 to $5.00 and set a “buy” rating for the company in a research note on Thursday, February 27th. Barclays reiterated an “overweight” rating and issued a $4.00 target price (down from $9.00) on shares of Geron in a research note on Thursday. Finally, Stifel Nicolaus dropped their target price on Geron from $8.00 to $4.00 and set a “buy” rating for the company in a research note on Thursday, February 27th. One investment analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, three have given a hold rating, eight have issued a buy rating and one has assigned a strong buy rating to the company. Based on data from MarketBeat, Geron currently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $5.68.

About Geron

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.