Guardant Health (NASDAQ:GH) Shares Gap Up Following Analyst Upgrade

Guardant Health, Inc. (NASDAQ:GH) shares gapped up prior to trading on Thursday after JPMorgan Chase & Co. raised their price target on the stock from $48.00 to $50.00. The stock had previously closed at $25.29, but opened at $32.39. JPMorgan Chase & Co. currently has an overweight rating on the stock. Guardant Health shares last traded at $30.44, with a volume of 1,366,838 shares changing hands.

GH has been the subject of a number of other reports. The Goldman Sachs Group lifted their target price on Guardant Health from $32.00 to $36.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a report on Thursday. UBS Group raised their price target on shares of Guardant Health from $32.00 to $40.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a report on Wednesday, August 21st. Bank of America upped their price objective on shares of Guardant Health from $28.00 to $40.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a report on Thursday, July 18th. Sanford C. Bernstein reduced their target price on Guardant Health from $40.00 to $35.00 and set an “outperform” rating for the company in a research note on Wednesday, October 30th. Finally, Craig Hallum increased their price target on Guardant Health from $28.00 to $37.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a report on Thursday, August 8th. One investment analyst has rated the stock with a hold rating and seventeen have assigned a buy rating to the company’s stock. According to data from MarketBeat.com, the stock currently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus target price of $40.35.

Hedge Funds Weigh In On Guardant Health

Several institutional investors have recently added to or reduced their stakes in GH. Vanguard Group Inc. boosted its stake in Guardant Health by 2.7% in the first quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 11,436,026 shares of the company’s stock valued at $235,925,000 after acquiring an additional 305,372 shares during the last quarter. ARK Investment Management LLC lifted its stake in Guardant Health by 233.5% in the third quarter. ARK Investment Management LLC now owns 1,512,694 shares of the company’s stock valued at $34,701,000 after purchasing an additional 1,059,104 shares during the last quarter. Bank of New York Mellon Corp grew its holdings in Guardant Health by 31.8% during the second quarter. Bank of New York Mellon Corp now owns 1,280,221 shares of the company’s stock valued at $36,973,000 after purchasing an additional 309,157 shares during the period. Sumitomo Mitsui Trust Group Inc. increased its position in Guardant Health by 1,282.5% in the third quarter. Sumitomo Mitsui Trust Group Inc. now owns 1,226,176 shares of the company’s stock worth $28,128,000 after buying an additional 1,137,482 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Railway Pension Investments Ltd raised its stake in shares of Guardant Health by 63.8% in the second quarter. Railway Pension Investments Ltd now owns 620,878 shares of the company’s stock valued at $17,931,000 after buying an additional 241,800 shares during the period. Institutional investors own 92.60% of the company’s stock.

Guardant Health Price Performance

The company has a current ratio of 6.40, a quick ratio of 6.07 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 16.70. The stock has a market cap of $3.52 billion, a PE ratio of -6.99 and a beta of 1.11. The business has a 50-day moving average price of $23.07 and a 200 day moving average price of $25.90.

Guardant Health (NASDAQ:GH) last issued its earnings results on Wednesday, August 7th. The company reported ($0.84) earnings per share for the quarter, missing analysts’ consensus estimates of ($0.74) by ($0.10). Guardant Health had a negative return on equity of 418.21% and a negative net margin of 76.23%. The business had revenue of $177.24 million for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $162.59 million. During the same quarter in the prior year, the business earned ($0.67) EPS. Guardant Health’s revenue for the quarter was up 29.2% compared to the same quarter last year. As a group, research analysts forecast that Guardant Health, Inc. will post -3.31 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

About Guardant Health

Guardant Health, Inc, a precision oncology company, provides blood and tissue tests, data sets, and analytics in the United States and internationally. The company provides Guardant360; Guardant360 LDT; Guardant360 CDx Test; Guardant360 Response Test; Guardant360 TissueNext Test; GuardantINFINITY Test; GuardantConnect, an integrated software-based solution designed for clinical and biopharmaceutical customers to connect patients tested with assays with actionable alterations with potentially relevant clinical studies; GuardantOMNI Test for advanced stage cancer; and GuardantINFORM, an in-silico research platform for tumor evolution and treatment resistance across various biomarker-driven cancers.