AQR Capital Management LLC Invests $175,000 in Geron Co. (NASDAQ:GERN)

AQR Capital Management LLC acquired a new position in shares of Geron Co. (NASDAQ:GERN) during the 2nd quarter, according to the company in its most recent 13F filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The fund acquired 41,245 shares of the biopharmaceutical company’s stock, valued at approximately $175,000.

Several other institutional investors and hedge funds also recently made changes to their positions in the stock. Vanguard Group Inc. increased its holdings in shares of Geron by 4.6% during the 1st quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 29,869,287 shares of the biopharmaceutical company’s stock worth $98,569,000 after purchasing an additional 1,304,713 shares during the period. Farallon Capital Management LLC increased its stake in Geron by 124.6% in the second quarter. Farallon Capital Management LLC now owns 16,837,000 shares of the biopharmaceutical company’s stock valued at $71,389,000 after acquiring an additional 9,342,000 shares during the period. Affinity Asset Advisors LLC bought a new stake in Geron in the first quarter valued at about $8,250,000. Price T Rowe Associates Inc. MD increased 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 valued at $6,815,000 after acquiring an additional 1,877,184 shares during the period. Finally, Bank of New York Mellon Corp increased its stake in Geron by 26.0% in the second quarter. Bank of New York Mellon Corp now owns 2,016,622 shares of the biopharmaceutical company’s stock valued at $8,550,000 after acquiring an additional 415,883 shares during the period. Institutional investors own 73.71% of the company’s stock.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

A number of analysts recently weighed in on the stock. Scotiabank assumed coverage on shares of Geron in a research note on Wednesday. They issued a “sector outperform” rating and a $6.00 target price on the stock. Leerink Partnrs upgraded shares of Geron to a “strong-buy” rating in a research report on Monday, September 9th. StockNews.com upgraded shares of Geron to a “sell” rating in a research report on Monday, August 5th. Leerink Partners started coverage on shares of Geron in a research report on Monday, September 9th. They issued an “outperform” rating and a $7.00 price target on the stock. Finally, Wedbush restated an “outperform” rating and issued a $8.00 price target on shares of Geron in a research report on Thursday, August 8th. One research analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, one has issued 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 presently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average price target of $6.94.

Geron Trading Up 0.7 %

Shares of NASDAQ GERN opened at $4.09 on Friday. The company’s 50 day simple moving average is $4.45 and its 200 day simple moving average is $4.23. Geron Co. has a fifty-two week low of $1.64 and a fifty-two week high of $5.34. The firm has a market capitalization of $2.43 billion, a P/E ratio of -11.63 and a beta of 0.50. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.12, a current ratio of 3.61 and a quick ratio of 3.60.

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

Geron 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.