Illumina’s (ILMN) “Overweight” Rating Reaffirmed at Stephens

Stephens restated their overweight rating on shares of Illumina (NASDAQ:ILMN) in a research note issued to investors on Wednesday morning, Benzinga reports. The brokerage currently has a $170.00 target price on the life sciences company’s stock.

A number of other brokerages have also recently issued reports on ILMN. Sanford C. Bernstein raised shares of Illumina from an underperform rating to a market perform rating in a report on Friday, December 15th. Wolfe Research initiated coverage on shares of Illumina in a report on Wednesday, December 13th. They issued an outperform rating and a $175.00 price target on the stock. HSBC cut shares of Illumina from a buy rating to a hold rating in a report on Tuesday, January 16th. Scotiabank raised shares of Illumina from a sector perform rating to a sector outperform rating and set a $185.00 price target on the stock in a report on Monday, December 18th. Finally, TD Cowen cut shares of Illumina from an outperform rating to a market perform rating and set a $144.00 price target on the stock. in a report on Thursday, January 4th. Two investment analysts have rated the stock with a sell rating, nine have assigned a hold rating and nine have issued a buy rating to the company’s stock. Based on data from MarketBeat, the stock has an average rating of Hold and a consensus target price of $167.70.

Illumina Price Performance

Shares of NASDAQ ILMN opened at $131.17 on Wednesday. The company has a fifty day moving average price of $136.42 and a 200 day moving average price of $128.48. The company has a current ratio of 1.66, a quick ratio of 1.29 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.26. Illumina has a 1-year low of $89.00 and a 1-year high of $232.88. The firm has a market cap of $20.89 billion, a PE ratio of -17.87 and a beta of 1.19.

Illumina (NASDAQ:ILMN) last issued its quarterly earnings results on Thursday, February 8th. The life sciences company reported $0.14 EPS for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $0.01 by $0.13. The firm had revenue of $1.12 billion for the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $1.09 billion. Illumina had a negative net margin of 25.78% and a positive return on equity of 2.20%. The company’s revenue for the quarter was up 3.6% on a year-over-year basis. During the same period in the previous year, the firm posted $0.14 EPS. Research analysts predict that Illumina will post 0.91 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Insider Buying and Selling

In other news, CEO Jacob Thaysen purchased 7,330 shares of Illumina stock in a transaction that occurred on Thursday, February 22nd. The shares were acquired at an average price of $135.29 per share, for a total transaction of $991,675.70. Following the transaction, the chief executive officer now owns 14,861 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $2,010,544.69. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available at the SEC website. 0.13% of the stock is currently owned by company insiders.

Institutional Trading of Illumina

A number of hedge funds have recently added to or reduced their stakes in the stock. Vanguard Group Inc. boosted its position in Illumina by 1.2% in the fourth quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 18,178,513 shares of the life sciences company’s stock valued at $2,531,176,000 after buying an additional 210,755 shares in the last quarter. Edgewood Management LLC boosted its position in Illumina by 4.6% in the fourth quarter. Edgewood Management LLC now owns 6,878,495 shares of the life sciences company’s stock valued at $957,762,000 after buying an additional 302,222 shares in the last quarter. Polen Capital Management LLC boosted its position in Illumina by 0.6% in the third quarter. Polen Capital Management LLC now owns 5,126,614 shares of the life sciences company’s stock valued at $703,782,000 after buying an additional 29,153 shares in the last quarter. Loomis Sayles & Co. L P boosted its position in Illumina by 5.5% in the third quarter. Loomis Sayles & Co. L P now owns 4,007,957 shares of the life sciences company’s stock valued at $550,212,000 after buying an additional 208,267 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Bank of New York Mellon Corp boosted its position in Illumina by 6.6% in the third quarter. Bank of New York Mellon Corp now owns 3,648,935 shares of the life sciences company’s stock valued at $500,926,000 after buying an additional 225,074 shares in the last quarter. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 89.42% of the company’s stock.

About Illumina

Illumina, Inc offers sequencing- and array-based solutions for genetic and genomic analysis in the United States, Singapore, the United Kingdom, and internationally. It operates through Core Illumina and GRAIL segments. The company offers sequencing and array-based instruments and consumables, which include reagents, flow cells, and library preparation; whole-genome sequencing kits, which sequence entire genomes of various size and complexity; and targeted resequencing kits, which sequence exomes, specific genes, and RNA or other genomic regions of interest.