Inspire Investing LLC Sells 25,259 Shares of Geron Co. (NASDAQ:GERN)

Inspire Investing LLC reduced its stake in Geron Co. (NASDAQ:GERN) by 23.4% in the second quarter, according to the company in its most recent Form 13F filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). The institutional investor owned 82,660 shares of the biopharmaceutical company’s stock after selling 25,259 shares during the period. Inspire Investing LLC’s holdings in Geron were worth $350,000 at the end of the most recent reporting period.

A number of other institutional investors also recently bought and sold shares of the stock. Vanguard Group Inc. raised its stake in Geron by 4.6% in the first quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 29,869,287 shares of the biopharmaceutical company’s stock worth $98,569,000 after buying an additional 1,304,713 shares in the last quarter. Farallon Capital Management LLC bought a new position in Geron in the first quarter worth about $24,734,000. Charles Schwab Investment Management Inc. raised its stake in Geron by 5.7% in the fourth quarter. Charles Schwab Investment Management Inc. now owns 3,842,500 shares of the biopharmaceutical company’s stock worth $8,108,000 after buying an additional 208,170 shares in the last quarter. Affinity Asset Advisors LLC bought a new position in Geron in the first quarter worth about $8,250,000. Finally, Price T Rowe Associates Inc. MD raised its stake in Geron by 999.7% in the first quarter. Price T Rowe Associates Inc. MD now owns 2,064,963 shares of the biopharmaceutical company’s stock worth $6,815,000 after buying an additional 1,877,184 shares in the last quarter. 73.71% of the stock is owned by institutional investors.

Insider Buying and Selling

In related news, COO Andrew J. Grethlein sold 674,348 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Monday, July 8th. The shares were sold at an average price of $4.56, for a total value of $3,075,026.88. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which is available at this link. 3.10% of the stock is currently owned by corporate insiders.

Geron Trading Down 9.1 %

NASDAQ:GERN opened at $4.28 on Tuesday. The company’s 50 day moving average price is $4.55 and its 200-day moving average price is $4.06. Geron Co. has a 52 week low of $1.64 and a 52 week high of $5.34. The company has a quick ratio of 3.60, a current ratio of 3.61 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.12. The stock has a market cap of $2.54 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of -12.23 and a beta of 0.50.

Geron (NASDAQ:GERN) last posted its quarterly earnings results on Thursday, August 8th. The biopharmaceutical company reported ($0.10) EPS for the quarter, meeting analysts’ consensus estimates of ($0.10). Geron had a negative net margin of 15,990.68% and a negative return on equity of 73.79%. The firm had revenue of $0.88 million for the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $0.34 million. During the same quarter in the prior year, the company posted ($0.09) earnings per share. The business’s revenue for the quarter was up 2941.4% on a year-over-year basis. On average, equities research analysts forecast that Geron Co. will post -0.34 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

A number of brokerages have weighed in on GERN. Needham & Company LLC reaffirmed a “buy” rating and set a $6.00 target price on shares of Geron in a research note on Friday, August 9th. Leerink Partnrs raised shares of Geron to a “strong-buy” rating in a research note on Monday, September 9th. Leerink Partners began coverage on shares of Geron in a research note on Monday, September 9th. They set an “outperform” rating and a $7.00 target price for the company. StockNews.com raised shares of Geron to a “sell” rating in a research note on Monday, August 5th. Finally, Barclays began coverage on shares of Geron in a research note on Monday, June 10th. They set an “overweight” rating and a $9.00 target price for the company. One equities research analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, one has issued a hold rating, seven have issued a buy rating and one has assigned a strong buy rating to the company. According to data from MarketBeat.com, the company presently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average price target of $7.06.

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.