QuidelOrtho (NASDAQ:QDEL) Shares Gap Up – Should You Buy?

QuidelOrtho Corporation (NASDAQ:QDEL) gapped up before the market opened on Friday . The stock had previously closed at $25.66, but opened at $26.47. QuidelOrtho shares last traded at $27.05, with a volume of 59,765 shares traded.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

QDEL has been the topic of a number of analyst reports. Wall Street Zen cut shares of QuidelOrtho from a “buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a research note on Saturday, July 26th. Citigroup dropped their price objective on shares of QuidelOrtho from $50.00 to $40.00 and set a “buy” rating on the stock in a research note on Wednesday, August 6th. Jefferies Financial Group raised shares of QuidelOrtho from a “hold” rating to a “buy” rating and set a $44.00 price objective on the stock in a research note on Thursday, May 8th. Finally, UBS Group reduced their target price on QuidelOrtho from $29.00 to $26.00 and set a “neutral” rating for the company in a research note on Thursday, August 7th. Four equities research analysts have rated the stock with a Buy rating, two have issued a Hold rating and one has issued a Sell rating to the stock. According to MarketBeat.com, the stock has an average rating of “Hold” and an average price target of $42.17.

QuidelOrtho Price Performance

The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.74, a current ratio of 1.12 and a quick ratio of 0.62. The stock has a 50 day moving average price of $27.11 and a 200-day moving average price of $31.16. The stock has a market capitalization of $1.89 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of -4.27 and a beta of -0.04.

QuidelOrtho (NASDAQ:QDEL) last issued its quarterly earnings results on Tuesday, August 5th. The company reported $0.12 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, topping analysts’ consensus estimates of $0.01 by $0.11. The firm had revenue of $613.90 million for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $612.36 million. QuidelOrtho had a positive return on equity of 5.29% and a negative net margin of 16.10%.The business’s revenue was down 3.6% on a year-over-year basis. During the same period in the previous year, the company posted ($0.07) earnings per share. On average, analysts forecast that QuidelOrtho Corporation will post 2.3 earnings per share for the current year.

Institutional Trading of QuidelOrtho

A number of institutional investors have recently made changes to their positions in the company. T. Rowe Price Investment Management Inc. boosted its stake in shares of QuidelOrtho by 1.9% in the first quarter. T. Rowe Price Investment Management Inc. now owns 11,447,188 shares of the company’s stock worth $400,309,000 after acquiring an additional 208,362 shares during the last quarter. Invesco Ltd. increased its holdings in shares of QuidelOrtho by 10.6% in the first quarter. Invesco Ltd. now owns 3,813,833 shares of the company’s stock valued at $133,370,000 after purchasing an additional 366,387 shares during the last quarter. State Street Corp increased its holdings in shares of QuidelOrtho by 23.3% in the second quarter. State Street Corp now owns 2,700,940 shares of the company’s stock valued at $77,841,000 after purchasing an additional 510,291 shares during the last quarter. AQR Capital Management LLC increased its holdings in shares of QuidelOrtho by 230.3% in the first quarter. AQR Capital Management LLC now owns 2,655,576 shares of the company’s stock valued at $90,130,000 after purchasing an additional 1,851,590 shares during the last quarter. Finally, ArrowMark Colorado Holdings LLC increased its holdings in shares of QuidelOrtho by 5.4% in the fourth quarter. ArrowMark Colorado Holdings LLC now owns 1,977,697 shares of the company’s stock valued at $88,106,000 after purchasing an additional 100,522 shares during the last quarter. 99.00% of the stock is owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

QuidelOrtho Company Profile

QuidelOrtho Corporation provides diagnostic testing solutions. The company operates through Labs, Transfusion Medicine, Point-of-Care, and Molecular Diagnostics business units. The Labs business unit provides clinical chemistry laboratory instruments and tests that measure target chemicals in bodily fluids for the evaluation of health and the clinical management of patients; immunoassay laboratory instruments and tests, which measure proteins as they act as antigens in the spread of disease, antibodies in the immune response spurred by disease, or markers of proper organ function and health; testing products to detect and monitor disease progression across a spectrum of therapeutic areas; and specialized diagnostic solutions.