Geron Co. (NASDAQ:GERN) Receives Consensus Rating of “Buy” from Analysts

Shares of Geron Co. (NASDAQ:GERN) have been given a consensus recommendation of “Buy” by the eleven ratings firms that are currently covering the company, MarketBeat reports. One equities research analyst has rated the stock with a hold recommendation, nine have assigned a buy recommendation and one has assigned a strong buy recommendation to the company. The average twelve-month price objective among analysts that have covered the stock in the last year is $7.05.

A number of equities research analysts recently weighed in on GERN shares. Leerink Partners initiated coverage on shares of Geron in a research note on Monday, September 9th. They set an “outperform” rating and a $7.00 price target for the company. StockNews.com upgraded Geron to a “sell” rating in a research report on Monday, August 5th. Wedbush reiterated an “outperform” rating and issued a $8.00 price objective on shares of Geron in a report on Thursday, August 8th. Leerink Partnrs upgraded Geron to a “strong-buy” rating in a report on Monday, September 9th. Finally, Needham & Company LLC reaffirmed a “buy” rating and issued a $6.00 price target on shares of Geron in a research note on Friday, August 9th.

Geron Stock Down 1.2 %

NASDAQ:GERN opened at $4.12 on Monday. The stock’s fifty day moving average price is $4.16 and its two-hundred day moving average price is $4.32. The company has a market cap of $2.49 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of -12.88 and a beta of 0.52. Geron has a 52-week low of $1.64 and a 52-week high of $5.34. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.04, a quick ratio of 2.74 and a current ratio of 2.89.

Geron (NASDAQ:GERN) last posted its quarterly earnings results on Thursday, November 7th. The biopharmaceutical company reported ($0.04) earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of ($0.09) by $0.05. Geron had a negative return on equity of 67.53% and a negative net margin of 682.48%. The business had revenue of $28.27 million for the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $18.97 million. During the same quarter last year, the business earned ($0.08) earnings per share. The firm’s quarterly revenue was up 17138.4% compared to the same quarter last year. On average, analysts anticipate that Geron will post -0.25 EPS for the current year.

Institutional Inflows and Outflows

Several institutional investors and hedge funds have recently made changes to their positions in GERN. National Bank of Canada FI boosted its stake in Geron by 1,200.0% in the 2nd quarter. National Bank of Canada FI now owns 6,500 shares of the biopharmaceutical company’s stock worth $28,000 after purchasing an additional 6,000 shares during the period. Readystate Asset Management LP bought a new stake in shares of Geron in the third quarter valued at about $58,000. Rovin Capital UT ADV acquired a new position in shares of Geron during the third quarter worth about $62,000. CIBC Asset Management Inc grew its holdings in shares of Geron by 32.7% during the second quarter. CIBC Asset Management Inc now owns 15,438 shares of the biopharmaceutical company’s stock worth $65,000 after buying an additional 3,805 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Csenge Advisory Group acquired a new stake in Geron in the 2nd quarter valued at approximately $66,000. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 73.71% of the company’s stock.

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.