Investors Purchase High Volume of Geron Call Options (NASDAQ:GERN)

Geron Co. (NASDAQ:GERN) was the recipient of some unusual options trading activity on Wednesday. Stock investors acquired 11,465 call options on the stock. This is an increase of approximately 578% compared to the typical daily volume of 1,691 call options.

Institutional Trading of Geron

Several institutional investors and hedge funds have recently added to or reduced their stakes in GERN. Creative Planning raised its holdings in Geron by 23.8% during the 3rd quarter. Creative Planning now owns 92,784 shares of the biopharmaceutical company’s stock worth $421,000 after purchasing an additional 17,837 shares during the last quarter. Mirae Asset Global Investments Co. Ltd. raised its holdings in Geron by 23.1% during the 3rd quarter. Mirae Asset Global Investments Co. Ltd. now owns 21,802 shares of the biopharmaceutical company’s stock worth $100,000 after purchasing an additional 4,094 shares during the last quarter. abrdn plc bought a new stake in Geron during the 3rd quarter worth about $6,752,000. China Universal Asset Management Co. Ltd. raised its holdings in Geron by 66.4% during the 3rd quarter. China Universal Asset Management Co. Ltd. now owns 115,937 shares of the biopharmaceutical company’s stock worth $526,000 after purchasing an additional 46,254 shares during the last quarter. Finally, US Bancorp DE raised its holdings in Geron by 68.4% during the 3rd quarter. US Bancorp DE now owns 18,296 shares of the biopharmaceutical company’s stock worth $83,000 after purchasing an additional 7,429 shares during the last quarter. 73.71% of the stock is owned by institutional investors.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

A number of research firms have recently commented on GERN. Barclays raised shares of Geron to a “strong-buy” rating in a research report on Friday, November 29th. Needham & Company LLC lifted their price target on shares of Geron from $6.00 to $7.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a research report on Monday, January 13th. B. Riley dropped their price target on shares of Geron from $5.50 to $3.50 and set a “buy” rating on the stock in a research report on Tuesday, February 18th. Finally, HC Wainwright lowered shares of Geron from a “buy” rating to a “neutral” rating in a research report on Wednesday. One research analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, two have given a hold rating, eight have issued a buy rating and two have assigned a strong buy rating to the company’s stock. According to MarketBeat, the stock has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus target price of $6.91.

Geron Stock Performance

Geron stock opened at $1.61 on Thursday. The stock has a 50-day simple moving average of $3.00 and a 200 day simple moving average of $3.81. The company has a quick ratio of 2.74, a current ratio of 2.89 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.04. Geron has a 12-month low of $1.46 and a 12-month high of $5.34. The stock has a market capitalization of $973.25 million, a price-to-earnings ratio of -5.03 and a beta of 0.53.

Geron (NASDAQ:GERN) last announced its quarterly earnings data on Wednesday, February 26th. The biopharmaceutical company reported ($0.04) earnings per share for the quarter, hitting the consensus estimate of ($0.04). Geron had a negative return on equity of 67.53% and a negative net margin of 682.48%. On average, research analysts anticipate that Geron will post -0.25 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Geron Company 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.