Geron’s (GERN) “Buy” Rating Reiterated at HC Wainwright

HC Wainwright reaffirmed their buy rating on shares of Geron (NASDAQ:GERN) in a research report report published on Tuesday morning,Benzinga reports. The firm currently has a $9.00 price objective on the biopharmaceutical company’s stock.

Several other analysts have also recently issued reports on GERN. Leerink Partners started coverage on Geron in a research report on Monday, September 9th. They set an “outperform” rating and a $7.00 target price on the stock. Barclays upgraded shares of Geron to a “strong-buy” rating in a report on Friday, November 29th. Scotiabank initiated coverage on shares of Geron in a report on Wednesday, October 16th. They issued a “sector outperform” rating and a $6.00 price target on the stock. Finally, Leerink Partnrs raised shares of Geron to a “strong-buy” rating in a research report on Monday, September 9th. One research analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, one has assigned a hold rating, eight have assigned a buy rating and two have assigned a strong buy rating to the company. According to data from MarketBeat, the stock presently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus target price of $7.15.

Geron Stock Performance

Shares of Geron stock opened at $3.92 on Tuesday. Geron has a 12 month low of $1.64 and a 12 month high of $5.34. The stock’s fifty day moving average price is $4.08 and its 200-day moving average price is $4.34. The firm has a market cap of $2.37 billion, a P/E ratio of -12.25 and a beta of 0.51. The company has a current ratio of 2.89, a quick ratio of 2.74 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.04.

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

Institutional Inflows and Outflows

A number of hedge funds have recently modified their holdings of the company. RTW Investments LP purchased a new stake in Geron in the third quarter valued at approximately $200,268,000. Darwin Global Management Ltd. purchased a new stake in shares of Geron in the 2nd quarter valued at $106,185,000. Holocene Advisors LP acquired a new stake in shares of Geron in the third quarter worth $82,498,000. Janus Henderson Group PLC increased 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 worth $102,193,000 after acquiring an additional 13,163,889 shares during the period. Finally, Farallon Capital Management LLC raised its holdings in shares of Geron by 124.6% during the second quarter. Farallon Capital Management LLC now owns 16,837,000 shares of the biopharmaceutical company’s stock worth $71,389,000 after purchasing an additional 9,342,000 shares during the last quarter. 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.