Baillie Gifford & Co. Increases Position in Guardant Health, Inc. $GH

Baillie Gifford & Co. increased its stake in shares of Guardant Health, Inc. (NASDAQ:GH) by 6.6% in the third quarter, according to its most recent 13F filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). The fund owned 5,127,692 shares of the company’s stock after purchasing an additional 317,906 shares during the quarter. Baillie Gifford & Co. owned approximately 4.11% of Guardant Health worth $320,378,000 as of its most recent SEC filing.

A number of other institutional investors also recently added to or reduced their stakes in the stock. Emerald Advisers LLC grew its stake in Guardant Health by 24.8% during the 3rd quarter. Emerald Advisers LLC now owns 873,203 shares of the company’s stock valued at $54,558,000 after purchasing an additional 173,281 shares during the last quarter. Edgestream Partners L.P. raised its stake in shares of Guardant Health by 147.3% in the second quarter. Edgestream Partners L.P. now owns 50,519 shares of the company’s stock worth $2,629,000 after purchasing an additional 30,094 shares during the last quarter. State of Wyoming acquired a new stake in shares of Guardant Health during the second quarter worth about $567,000. Yorktown Management & Research Co Inc purchased a new stake in Guardant Health in the second quarter valued at approximately $289,000. Finally, Federated Hermes Inc. increased its holdings in Guardant Health by 72.4% in the 2nd quarter. Federated Hermes Inc. now owns 1,465,438 shares of the company’s stock worth $76,261,000 after buying an additional 615,429 shares during the period. Institutional investors own 92.60% of the company’s stock.

Insider Transactions at Guardant Health

In other news, CEO Amirali Talasaz sold 100,000 shares of Guardant Health stock in a transaction that occurred on Monday, December 8th. The stock was sold at an average price of $105.05, for a total value of $10,505,000.00. Following the sale, the chief executive officer directly owned 168,223 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $17,671,826.15. The trade was a 37.28% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which is available at this link. Also, insider Chris Freeman sold 31,452 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Friday, December 5th. The stock was sold at an average price of $103.07, for a total value of $3,241,757.64. Following the sale, the insider owned 25,987 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $2,678,480.09. The trade was a 54.76% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The SEC filing for this sale provides additional information. Insiders sold a total of 445,123 shares of company stock worth $46,600,702 in the last three months. 6.10% of the stock is owned by corporate insiders.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

Several research firms have recently commented on GH. Canaccord Genuity Group upped their price objective on shares of Guardant Health from $100.00 to $125.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a report on Monday, December 22nd. JPMorgan Chase & Co. upped their price target on shares of Guardant Health from $90.00 to $120.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a report on Monday, December 15th. Morgan Stanley increased their price target on Guardant Health from $105.00 to $130.00 and gave the stock an “overweight” rating in a research report on Monday, December 1st. Piper Sandler boosted their price objective on Guardant Health from $60.00 to $90.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a report on Wednesday, October 22nd. Finally, UBS Group upped their target price on Guardant Health from $80.00 to $110.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a research note on Thursday, October 30th. Twenty-one analysts have rated the stock with a Buy rating, one has assigned a Hold rating and one has issued a Sell rating to the stock. According to data from MarketBeat.com, the company has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus price target of $102.81.

Guardant Health Price Performance

Shares of NASDAQ:GH opened at $114.75 on Friday. The business’s 50 day moving average price is $105.24 and its 200-day moving average price is $77.45. Guardant Health, Inc. has a 1 year low of $34.88 and a 1 year high of $120.74. The firm has a market capitalization of $14.46 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of -35.75 and a beta of 1.58.

Guardant Health (NASDAQ:GH) last posted its quarterly earnings data on Wednesday, October 29th. The company reported ($0.39) earnings per share for the quarter, topping analysts’ consensus estimates of ($0.48) by $0.09. The firm’s quarterly revenue was up 38.5% on a year-over-year basis. During the same quarter last year, the firm earned ($0.88) EPS. On average, sell-side analysts expect that Guardant Health, Inc. will post -2.9 earnings per share for the current year.

Guardant Health Profile

Guardant Health, Inc is a precision oncology company specializing in blood-based cancer diagnostics. Founded in 2012 and headquartered in Redwood City, California, the company develops non-invasive tests that use circulating tumor DNA (ctDNA) to profile genomic alterations in patients with solid tumors. Guardant Health’s mission is to advance cancer care by providing actionable data to clinicians, pharmaceutical partners and researchers worldwide.

The company’s flagship product, Guardant360, is a next-generation sequencing (NGS) assay designed to detect mutations, copy number variations and select fusions in more than 70 cancer-related genes.