Ameriprise Financial Inc. Buys 247,018 Shares of Geron Co. (NASDAQ:GERN)

Ameriprise Financial Inc. grew its stake in Geron Co. (NASDAQ:GERN) by 8.8% during the fourth quarter, according to its most recent 13F filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The firm owned 3,064,458 shares of the biopharmaceutical company’s stock after acquiring an additional 247,018 shares during the quarter. Ameriprise Financial Inc. owned about 0.51% of Geron worth $10,845,000 at the end of the most recent quarter.

Several other large investors have also recently made changes to their positions in the stock. Nvest Financial LLC bought a new position in Geron in the fourth quarter worth about $693,000. Charles Schwab Investment Management Inc. grew its position in shares of Geron by 1.7% in the 4th quarter. Charles Schwab Investment Management Inc. now owns 4,523,864 shares of the biopharmaceutical company’s stock worth $16,014,000 after buying an additional 73,482 shares during the last quarter. Barclays PLC raised its stake in shares of Geron by 114.9% during the 3rd quarter. Barclays PLC now owns 1,299,912 shares of the biopharmaceutical company’s stock worth $5,902,000 after acquiring an additional 694,931 shares in the last quarter. Renaissance Technologies LLC purchased a new stake in Geron during the fourth quarter valued at approximately $5,143,000. Finally, Sei Investments Co. lifted its position in Geron by 6.8% during the fourth quarter. Sei Investments Co. now owns 189,614 shares of the biopharmaceutical company’s stock valued at $671,000 after acquiring an additional 12,027 shares during the last quarter. 73.71% of the stock is owned by institutional investors.

Geron Stock Up 9.4%

Shares of GERN stock opened at $1.39 on Tuesday. Geron Co. has a fifty-two week low of $1.17 and a fifty-two week high of $5.34. The firm has a market capitalization of $885.32 million, a PE ratio of -4.34 and a beta of 0.76. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.04, a quick ratio of 2.74 and a current ratio of 2.89. The stock’s 50-day simple moving average is $1.44 and its 200-day simple moving average is $2.59.

Geron (NASDAQ:GERN) last issued its quarterly earnings results on Wednesday, May 7th. The biopharmaceutical company reported ($0.03) earnings per share for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of ($0.04) by $0.01. Geron had a negative net margin of 682.48% and a negative return on equity of 67.53%. The company had revenue of $39.60 million for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $49.88 million. During the same quarter in the prior year, the company earned ($0.07) EPS. Geron’s quarterly revenue was up 12927.3% on a year-over-year basis. Equities analysts expect that Geron Co. will post -0.25 earnings per share for the current year.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

A number of equities analysts have recently issued reports on GERN shares. Needham & Company LLC reaffirmed a “buy” rating and set a $5.00 price target on shares of Geron in a research report on Wednesday, March 12th. Barclays reaffirmed an “overweight” rating and set a $4.00 target price (down from $9.00) on shares of Geron in a research report on Thursday, February 27th. HC Wainwright reissued a “neutral” rating on shares of Geron in a report on Wednesday, March 12th. B. Riley downgraded shares of Geron from a “buy” rating to a “neutral” rating and cut their price objective for the company from $3.50 to $2.00 in a report on Thursday, February 27th. Finally, Scotiabank lowered shares of Geron from a “sector outperform” rating to a “sector perform” rating and decreased their price objective for the company from $4.00 to $1.50 in a research report on Thursday, May 8th. One investment analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, three have assigned a hold rating, five have assigned a buy rating and one has given a strong buy rating to the company. Based on data from MarketBeat, the stock presently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $5.06.

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.