Swiss National Bank Grows Position in Geron Co. (NASDAQ:GERN)

Swiss National Bank lifted its stake in Geron Co. (NASDAQ:GERN) by 15.7% during the 4th quarter, according to its most recent disclosure with the Securities & Exchange Commission. The firm owned 1,007,800 shares of the biopharmaceutical company’s stock after buying an additional 136,400 shares during the quarter. Swiss National Bank owned about 0.17% of Geron worth $3,568,000 as of its most recent filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission.

Other large investors have also recently made changes to their positions in the company. RTW Investments LP purchased a new position in Geron during the third quarter valued at approximately $200,268,000. Nvest Financial LLC bought a new stake in shares of Geron during the 4th quarter valued at $693,000. Janus Henderson Group PLC lifted its stake in shares of Geron by 140.0% during the 3rd 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. Charles Schwab Investment Management Inc. boosted its holdings in Geron by 1.7% in the 4th quarter. Charles Schwab Investment Management Inc. now owns 4,523,864 shares of the biopharmaceutical company’s stock worth $16,014,000 after buying an additional 73,482 shares during the period. Finally, Barclays PLC increased its stake in Geron by 114.9% in the 3rd quarter. Barclays PLC now owns 1,299,912 shares of the biopharmaceutical company’s stock worth $5,902,000 after buying an additional 694,931 shares in the last quarter. 73.71% of the stock is owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

A number of equities analysts have recently weighed in on GERN shares. B. Riley lowered Geron from a “buy” rating to a “neutral” rating and dropped their price objective for the stock from $3.50 to $2.00 in a research note on Thursday, February 27th. Needham & Company LLC reaffirmed a “buy” rating and set a $5.00 price objective on shares of Geron in a report on Wednesday, March 12th. Scotiabank decreased their target price 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 restated a “neutral” rating on shares of Geron in a report on Wednesday, March 12th. Finally, Stifel Nicolaus lowered their price target on Geron from $8.00 to $4.00 and set a “buy” rating for the company in a research report on Thursday, February 27th. One investment analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, three have issued a hold rating, seven have issued a buy rating and one has assigned a strong buy rating to the stock. According to MarketBeat, the company has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus target price of $5.75.

Geron Trading Down 2.9 %

GERN stock opened at $1.70 on Wednesday. Geron Co. has a 12 month low of $1.46 and a 12 month high of $5.34. The firm’s 50-day moving average is $2.37 and its 200 day moving average is $3.43. The company has a market capitalization of $1.08 billion, a PE ratio of -5.31 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.

Geron (NASDAQ:GERN) last issued its earnings results on Wednesday, February 26th. The biopharmaceutical company reported ($0.04) EPS for the quarter, hitting analysts’ consensus estimates of ($0.04). Geron had a negative net margin of 682.48% and a negative return on equity of 67.53%. The business had revenue of $47.54 million for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $45.29 million. On average, research analysts anticipate that Geron Co. will post -0.25 EPS for the current year.

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.