Invesco Ltd. Boosts Holdings in Geron Corporation $GERN

Invesco Ltd. raised its holdings in Geron Corporation (NASDAQ:GERN) by 74.2% during the 1st quarter, according to the company in its most recent Form 13F filing with the SEC. The fund owned 3,618,607 shares of the biopharmaceutical company’s stock after purchasing an additional 1,541,005 shares during the quarter. Invesco Ltd. owned 0.57% of Geron worth $5,754,000 at the end of the most recent reporting period.

A number of other hedge funds and other institutional investors have also made changes to their positions in the company. Integrated Wealth Concepts LLC acquired a new stake in shares of Geron during the 4th quarter worth approximately $36,000. MIRAE ASSET GLOBAL ETFS HOLDINGS Ltd. grew its stake in shares of Geron by 3.1% during the 4th quarter. MIRAE ASSET GLOBAL ETFS HOLDINGS Ltd. now owns 384,411 shares of the biopharmaceutical company’s stock worth $1,354,000 after purchasing an additional 11,652 shares during the period. GF Fund Management CO. LTD. acquired a new stake in shares of Geron during the 4th quarter worth approximately $45,000. Stifel Financial Corp grew its stake in shares of Geron by 29.9% during the 4th quarter. Stifel Financial Corp now owns 61,658 shares of the biopharmaceutical company’s stock worth $218,000 after purchasing an additional 14,181 shares during the period. Finally, Nuveen Asset Management LLC grew its stake in shares of Geron by 0.7% during the 4th quarter. Nuveen Asset Management LLC now owns 1,994,807 shares of the biopharmaceutical company’s stock worth $7,062,000 after purchasing an additional 14,657 shares during the period. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 73.71% of the company’s stock.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

GERN has been the topic of a number of analyst reports. The Goldman Sachs Group initiated coverage on shares of Geron in a research note on Thursday, July 10th. They set a “sell” rating and a $1.00 price objective on the stock. Scotiabank cut shares of Geron from a “sector outperform” rating to a “sector perform” rating and dropped their price objective for the stock from $4.00 to $1.50 in a research note on Thursday, May 8th. One equities research analyst has rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, four have issued a Buy rating, three have assigned a Hold rating and one has given a Sell rating to the stock. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, the company has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus target price of $4.19.

Geron Price Performance

Geron stock opened at $1.46 on Wednesday. The company’s fifty day moving average price is $1.36 and its 200 day moving average price is $1.54. Geron Corporation has a 1 year low of $1.09 and a 1 year high of $4.83. The stock has a market capitalization of $931.51 million, a P/E ratio of -11.23 and a beta of 0.73. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.46, a quick ratio of 6.79 and a current ratio of 7.87.

Geron (NASDAQ:GERN) last released its quarterly earnings results on Wednesday, August 6th. The biopharmaceutical company reported ($0.02) earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of ($0.03) by $0.01. Geron had a negative net margin of 53.52% and a negative return on equity of 31.37%. The firm had revenue of $49.04 million for the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $47.30 million. During the same quarter last year, the company earned ($0.10) EPS. The firm’s revenue for the quarter was up 5455.6% compared to the same quarter last year. As a group, equities research analysts anticipate that Geron Corporation 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.