Geron’s (GERN) Buy Rating Reaffirmed at Needham & Company LLC

Geron (NASDAQ:GERN)‘s stock had its “buy” rating restated by equities researchers at Needham & Company LLC in a research note issued to investors on Wednesday,Benzinga reports. They presently have a $5.00 price target on the biopharmaceutical company’s stock. Needham & Company LLC’s price target points to a potential upside of 212.50% from the company’s previous close.

A number of other research firms also recently commented on GERN. Scotiabank dropped their price objective on shares of Geron from $6.00 to $4.00 and set a “sector outperform” rating for the company in a research note on Thursday, February 27th. B. Riley downgraded shares of Geron from a “buy” rating to a “neutral” rating and cut their price target for the stock from $3.50 to $2.00 in a research note on Thursday, February 27th. Barclays reissued an “overweight” rating and set a $4.00 price objective (down from $9.00) on shares of Geron in a research note on Thursday, February 27th. Stifel Nicolaus cut their target price on Geron from $8.00 to $4.00 and set a “buy” rating on the stock in a research report on Thursday, February 27th. Finally, HC Wainwright downgraded Geron from a “buy” rating to a “neutral” rating in a research report on Wednesday, February 26th. One analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, three have assigned a hold rating, eight have given a buy rating and one has given a strong buy rating to the company. According to data from MarketBeat.com, the stock currently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average price target of $5.68.

Geron Stock Performance

NASDAQ GERN opened at $1.60 on Wednesday. The stock has a market cap of $1.02 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of -5.00 and a beta of 0.53. The company has a quick ratio of 2.74, a current ratio of 2.89 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.04. The business has a fifty day moving average of $2.73 and a 200-day moving average of $3.65. Geron has a fifty-two week low of $1.46 and a fifty-two week high of $5.34.

Geron (NASDAQ:GERN) last issued its quarterly earnings results on Wednesday, February 26th. The biopharmaceutical company reported ($0.04) earnings per share for the quarter, hitting analysts’ consensus estimates of ($0.04). The company had revenue of $47.54 million for 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, analysts predict that Geron will post -0.25 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Institutional Investors Weigh In On Geron

A number of large investors have recently added to or reduced their stakes in the company. RTW Investments LP acquired a new stake in shares of Geron during the third quarter valued at about $200,268,000. Vanguard Group Inc. increased its holdings in shares of Geron by 3.4% in the 4th quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 33,538,822 shares of the biopharmaceutical company’s stock valued at $118,727,000 after acquiring an additional 1,088,912 shares during the last quarter. State Street Corp lifted its position in shares of Geron by 28.4% in the 3rd quarter. State Street Corp now owns 28,961,671 shares of the biopharmaceutical company’s stock worth $131,486,000 after buying an additional 6,413,204 shares during the last quarter. Janus Henderson Group PLC boosted its stake in Geron by 20.0% in the fourth quarter. Janus Henderson Group PLC now owns 27,082,461 shares of the biopharmaceutical company’s stock valued at $95,769,000 after acquiring an additional 4,516,615 shares during the period. Finally, Holocene Advisors LP bought a new position in Geron during the 3rd quarter worth $82,498,000. 73.71% of the stock is owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

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.