Illumina (NASDAQ:ILMN) Upgraded by Wall Street Zen to Strong-Buy Rating

Illumina (NASDAQ:ILMN) was upgraded by Wall Street Zen from a “buy” rating to a “strong-buy” rating in a research note issued to investors on Saturday.

ILMN has been the topic of several other research reports. UBS Group reaffirmed a “neutral” rating and issued a $135.00 price target on shares of Illumina in a report on Friday, February 6th. TD Cowen reaffirmed a “hold” rating on shares of Illumina in a research note on Wednesday, January 7th. Robert W. Baird set a $137.00 target price on shares of Illumina in a research report on Friday, February 6th. Evercore set a $150.00 price target on shares of Illumina in a report on Friday, February 6th. Finally, Weiss Ratings restated a “hold (c-)” rating on shares of Illumina in a research report on Monday, December 29th. Six analysts have rated the stock with a Buy rating, eleven have issued a Hold rating and two have assigned a Sell rating to the stock. According to data from MarketBeat.com, the stock currently has an average rating of “Hold” and an average price target of $129.17.

Illumina Trading Up 2.1%

NASDAQ:ILMN opened at $116.81 on Friday. Illumina has a 12 month low of $68.70 and a 12 month high of $155.53. The company has a current ratio of 2.08, a quick ratio of 1.72 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.55. The firm’s 50 day moving average is $137.29 and its 200 day moving average is $116.52. The stock has a market capitalization of $17.85 billion, a PE ratio of 21.43, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 2.19 and a beta of 1.45.

Illumina (NASDAQ:ILMN) last released its quarterly earnings data on Thursday, February 5th. The life sciences company reported $1.35 EPS for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $1.26 by $0.09. Illumina had a net margin of 19.57% and a return on equity of 31.04%. The business had revenue of $1.16 billion for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $1.10 billion. During the same period in the prior year, the firm earned $0.95 earnings per share. The company’s revenue was up 5.0% compared to the same quarter last year. Illumina has set its FY 2026 guidance at 5.050-5.200 EPS. Sell-side analysts expect that Illumina will post 4.51 earnings per share for the current year.

Insider Buying and Selling at Illumina

In other news, insider Scott M. Davies sold 323 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction on Friday, December 12th. The shares were sold at an average price of $136.09, for a total transaction of $43,957.07. Following the sale, the insider owned 17,887 shares in the company, valued at approximately $2,434,241.83. The trade was a 1.77% decrease in their position. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which is accessible through the SEC website. 2.60% of the stock is owned by corporate insiders.

Institutional Inflows and Outflows

A number of hedge funds and other institutional investors have recently added to or reduced their stakes in the stock. Capital World Investors boosted its holdings in shares of Illumina by 0.6% during the 4th quarter. Capital World Investors now owns 20,101,173 shares of the life sciences company’s stock valued at $2,636,483,000 after purchasing an additional 124,323 shares during the last quarter. State Street Corp lifted its position in shares of Illumina by 3.2% in the fourth quarter. State Street Corp now owns 6,190,114 shares of the life sciences company’s stock worth $811,895,000 after buying an additional 190,324 shares in the last quarter. Loomis Sayles & Co. L P boosted its stake in Illumina by 1.9% during the second quarter. Loomis Sayles & Co. L P now owns 4,225,529 shares of the life sciences company’s stock valued at $403,158,000 after buying an additional 78,317 shares during the last quarter. AQR Capital Management LLC grew its holdings in Illumina by 3.1% during the 3rd quarter. AQR Capital Management LLC now owns 3,398,027 shares of the life sciences company’s stock valued at $315,915,000 after buying an additional 102,147 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Geode Capital Management LLC increased its stake in Illumina by 0.7% in the 2nd quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC now owns 2,869,187 shares of the life sciences company’s stock worth $272,921,000 after acquiring an additional 21,342 shares during the last quarter. Institutional investors own 89.42% of the company’s stock.

Illumina Company Profile

Illumina, Inc (NASDAQ: ILMN) is a global life sciences company that develops, manufactures and markets integrated systems for the analysis of genetic variation and function. Headquartered in San Diego, California and founded in 1998, Illumina offers a range of sequencing and array-based technologies used by academic researchers, clinical laboratories, pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies, consumer genomics firms and agricultural researchers to enable discovery, translational research and clinical applications.

The company’s product portfolio includes next-generation sequencing (NGS) platforms and associated consumables, microarrays for genotyping and methylation analysis, library preparation kits and targeted assays.