Geron (NASDAQ:GERN) Rating Reiterated by Needham & Company LLC

Needham & Company LLC reiterated their buy rating on shares of Geron (NASDAQ:GERN) in a report issued on Thursday morning, Benzinga reports. Needham & Company LLC currently has a $5.00 price target on the biopharmaceutical company’s stock.

Several other analysts have also commented on GERN. The Goldman Sachs Group boosted their price target on shares of Geron from $4.00 to $5.00 and gave the company a buy rating in a research report on Friday, March 15th. Wedbush restated an outperform rating and set a $6.00 price target on shares of Geron in a research report on Wednesday, April 10th.

Geron Trading Down 3.4 %

Shares of Geron stock opened at $3.64 on Thursday. The company has a current ratio of 3.16, a quick ratio of 3.16 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.14. Geron has a 1 year low of $1.64 and a 1 year high of $4.05. The company’s fifty day simple moving average is $2.57 and its 200-day simple moving average is $2.18. The company has a market cap of $1.99 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of -11.03 and a beta of 0.62.

Geron (NASDAQ:GERN) last issued its earnings results on Wednesday, February 28th. The biopharmaceutical company reported ($0.09) EPS for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of ($0.10) by $0.01. Geron had a negative return on equity of 63.33% and a negative net margin of 77,691.14%. The firm had revenue of $0.02 million during the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $0.06 million. During the same period last year, the business earned ($0.10) earnings per share. Geron’s quarterly revenue was down 77.7% compared to the same quarter last year. As a group, sell-side analysts expect that Geron will post -0.34 EPS for the current year.

Institutional Investors Weigh In On Geron

Institutional investors have recently modified their holdings of the business. Swiss National Bank lifted its stake in Geron by 8.4% in the first quarter. Swiss National Bank now owns 571,000 shares of the biopharmaceutical company’s stock valued at $777,000 after buying an additional 44,400 shares during the period. JPMorgan Chase & Co. raised its position in shares of Geron by 31.0% in the 1st quarter. JPMorgan Chase & Co. now owns 192,225 shares of the biopharmaceutical company’s stock valued at $261,000 after acquiring an additional 45,452 shares during the period. Bank of New York Mellon Corp boosted its stake in Geron by 1.0% during the 1st quarter. Bank of New York Mellon Corp now owns 1,161,223 shares of the biopharmaceutical company’s stock worth $1,580,000 after acquiring an additional 11,874 shares during the last quarter. MetLife Investment Management LLC grew its holdings in Geron by 24.9% during the first quarter. MetLife Investment Management LLC now owns 143,848 shares of the biopharmaceutical company’s stock valued at $196,000 after purchasing an additional 28,689 shares during the period. Finally, Vanguard Group Inc. increased its stake in Geron by 12.4% in the first quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 17,336,930 shares of the biopharmaceutical company’s stock valued at $23,579,000 after purchasing an additional 1,910,182 shares in the last quarter. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 73.71% of the company’s stock.

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.