Neogen Sees Unusually Large Options Volume (NASDAQ:NEOG)

Neogen Corporation (NASDAQ:NEOG) saw unusually large options trading on Thursday. Stock traders acquired 2,105 call options on the company. This represents an increase of approximately 319% compared to the average daily volume of 502 call options.

Hedge Funds Weigh In On Neogen

Several hedge funds have recently made changes to their positions in the business. Savant Capital LLC purchased a new stake in Neogen in the second quarter worth $50,000. Cresset Asset Management LLC purchased a new stake in Neogen in the second quarter worth $53,000. Evergreen Capital Management LLC purchased a new stake in Neogen in the second quarter worth $56,000. Blue Trust Inc. grew its stake in Neogen by 181.7% in the second quarter. Blue Trust Inc. now owns 11,974 shares of the company’s stock worth $57,000 after purchasing an additional 7,724 shares during the period. Finally, Osaic Holdings Inc. grew its stake in Neogen by 183.5% in the second quarter. Osaic Holdings Inc. now owns 12,663 shares of the company’s stock worth $61,000 after purchasing an additional 8,196 shares during the period. 96.73% of the stock is owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

NEOG has been the subject of a number of recent research reports. CJS Securities initiated coverage on Neogen in a research report on Monday, September 29th. They issued a “market perform” rating and a $10.00 target price for the company. Zacks Research upgraded Neogen from a “strong sell” rating to a “hold” rating in a research report on Wednesday, August 20th. Guggenheim dropped their target price on Neogen from $13.00 to $10.00 and set a “buy” rating for the company in a research report on Monday, June 30th. Weiss Ratings restated a “sell (e+)” rating on shares of Neogen in a research report on Wednesday. Finally, William Blair downgraded Neogen from an “outperform” rating to a “market perform” rating in a research report on Tuesday, July 29th. One analyst has rated the stock with a Buy rating, four have given a Hold rating and one has given a Sell rating to the stock. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, Neogen currently has a consensus rating of “Hold” and a consensus target price of $8.33.

Neogen Price Performance

NEOG opened at $6.78 on Friday. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.42, a quick ratio of 2.22 and a current ratio of 3.32. Neogen has a 52-week low of $3.87 and a 52-week high of $16.79. The stock has a market capitalization of $1.47 billion, a PE ratio of -1.35 and a beta of 1.90. The stock’s 50 day moving average price is $5.54 and its 200-day moving average price is $5.66.

Neogen Company Profile

Neogen Corporation, together with its subsidiaries, engages in the development, manufacture, and marketing of various products and services dedicated to food and animal safety worldwide. It operates through two segments, Food Safety and Animal Safety. The Food Safety segment offers diagnostic test kits and related products to detect dangerous and unintended substances in food and animal feed, including foodborne pathogens, spoilage organisms, natural toxins, food allergens, genetic modifications, ruminant by-products, meat speciation, drug residues, pesticide residues, and general sanitation concerns; and AccuPoint Advanced rapid sanitation test to detect the presence of adenosine triphosphate, a chemical found in living cells, as well as provides genomics-based diagnostic technology and software systems that help testers to objectively analyze and store their results and perform analysis on the results from multiple locations over extended periods.