Geron Corporation (NASDAQ:GERN) Given Average Rating of “Hold” by Analysts

Shares of Geron Corporation (NASDAQ:GERN) have earned a consensus recommendation of “Hold” from the eight brokerages that are presently covering the stock, Marketbeat reports. Two investment analysts have rated the stock with a sell recommendation, three have given a hold recommendation and three have given a buy recommendation to the company. The average 12 month price target among brokers that have issued ratings on the stock in the last year is $3.6429.

A number of brokerages recently issued reports on GERN. Needham & Company LLC dropped their price objective on shares of Geron from $5.00 to $4.00 and set a “buy” rating for the company in a report on Wednesday, November 5th. Weiss Ratings reiterated a “sell (e+)” rating on shares of Geron in a report on Friday, October 31st.

Institutional Trading of Geron

A number of institutional investors have recently bought and sold shares of the company. RA Capital Management L.P. increased its stake in shares of Geron by 101.2% during the 1st quarter. RA Capital Management L.P. now owns 60,379,366 shares of the biopharmaceutical company’s stock worth $96,003,000 after purchasing an additional 30,369,830 shares during the last quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. increased its position in Geron by 1.8% in the first quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 34,146,851 shares of the biopharmaceutical company’s stock worth $54,293,000 after buying an additional 608,029 shares during the last quarter. Vestal Point Capital LP raised its stake in Geron by 8.0% in the 2nd quarter. Vestal Point Capital LP now owns 23,775,000 shares of the biopharmaceutical company’s stock valued at $33,523,000 after acquiring an additional 1,769,660 shares during the period. Soleus Capital Management L.P. lifted its holdings in Geron by 572.5% during the second quarter. Soleus Capital Management L.P. now owns 16,140,000 shares of the biopharmaceutical company’s stock valued at $22,757,000 after purchasing an additional 13,740,000 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Geode Capital Management LLC increased its stake in shares of Geron by 4.3% in the second quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC now owns 14,152,038 shares of the biopharmaceutical company’s stock worth $19,956,000 after purchasing an additional 584,444 shares in the last quarter. Institutional investors own 73.71% of the company’s stock.

Geron Stock Performance

Shares of NASDAQ:GERN opened at $1.12 on Monday. Geron has a 12-month low of $1.04 and a 12-month high of $4.21. The company’s 50 day moving average price is $1.27 and its two-hundred day moving average price is $1.35. The firm has a market cap of $714.96 million, a PE ratio of -8.62 and a beta of 0.57. The company has a quick ratio of 6.79, a current ratio of 7.87 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.46.

Geron (NASDAQ:GERN) last issued its quarterly earnings results on Wednesday, November 5th. The biopharmaceutical company reported ($0.03) EPS for the quarter, hitting analysts’ consensus estimates of ($0.03). Geron had a negative return on equity of 31.37% and a negative net margin of 53.52%.The company had revenue of $47.23 million for the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $55.24 million. Equities research analysts predict that Geron will post -0.25 earnings per share for the current year.

About Geron

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.