QuidelOrtho (NASDAQ:QDEL) Reaches New 12-Month Low After Insider Selling

QuidelOrtho Co. (NASDAQ:QDEL)’s stock price hit a new 52-week low during trading on Tuesday after an insider sold shares in the company. The company traded as low as $31.30 and last traded at $31.48, with a volume of 21720 shares changing hands. The stock had previously closed at $31.63.

Specifically, major shareholder Carlyle Group Inc. sold 127,981 shares of the stock in a transaction that occurred on Friday, June 14th. The shares were sold at an average price of $36.19, for a total transaction of $4,631,632.39. Following the sale, the insider now owns 12,123,705 shares in the company, valued at approximately $438,756,883.95. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is accessible through this hyperlink. In the last 90 days, insiders have sold 564,225 shares of company stock worth $20,034,011. Corporate insiders own 1.00% of the company’s stock.

Wall Street Analyst Weigh In

Several equities analysts have recently issued reports on QDEL shares. Royal Bank of Canada dropped their price target on shares of QuidelOrtho from $81.00 to $68.00 and set an “outperform” rating for the company in a research note on Thursday, May 9th. UBS Group reaffirmed a “sell” rating and set a $42.00 price target (down previously from $70.00) on shares of QuidelOrtho in a research note on Monday, March 4th. Two research analysts have rated the stock with a sell rating, four have assigned a hold rating and two have issued a buy rating to the company’s stock. According to data from MarketBeat.com, the company currently has a consensus rating of “Hold” and an average target price of $59.00.

QuidelOrtho Price Performance

The company has a quick ratio of 0.81, a current ratio of 1.55 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.68. The firm has a market cap of $2.10 billion, a P/E ratio of -1.20 and a beta of 0.07. The business’s 50 day moving average is $40.31 and its two-hundred day moving average is $51.32.

QuidelOrtho (NASDAQ:QDEL) last posted its quarterly earnings results on Wednesday, May 8th. The company reported $0.36 EPS for the quarter, missing analysts’ consensus estimates of $0.42 by ($0.06). The company had revenue of $711.00 million during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $697.33 million. QuidelOrtho had a positive return on equity of 3.96% and a negative net margin of 61.65%. As a group, analysts anticipate that QuidelOrtho Co. will post 1.85 earnings per share for the current year.

Institutional Investors Weigh In On QuidelOrtho

A number of large investors have recently bought and sold shares of QDEL. Rubric Capital Management LP grew its holdings in QuidelOrtho by 230.6% in the fourth quarter. Rubric Capital Management LP now owns 980,063 shares of the company’s stock worth $72,231,000 after purchasing an additional 683,637 shares during the period. Norges Bank acquired a new position in shares of QuidelOrtho during the fourth quarter valued at about $41,968,000. Dimensional Fund Advisors LP grew its holdings in shares of QuidelOrtho by 144.2% during the fourth quarter. Dimensional Fund Advisors LP now owns 908,554 shares of the company’s stock valued at $66,961,000 after buying an additional 536,492 shares during the last quarter. Invenomic Capital Management LP acquired a new position in shares of QuidelOrtho during the fourth quarter valued at about $37,144,000. Finally, LGT Capital Partners LTD. grew its holdings in shares of QuidelOrtho by 69.9% during the fourth quarter. LGT Capital Partners LTD. now owns 954,466 shares of the company’s stock valued at $70,344,000 after buying an additional 392,790 shares during the last quarter. 99.00% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

About QuidelOrtho

QuidelOrtho Corporation provides diagnostic testing solutions. The company operates through Labs, Transfusion Medicine, Point-of-Care, and Molecular Diagnostics business units. The Labs business unit provides clinical chemistry laboratory instruments and tests that measure target chemicals in bodily fluids for the evaluation of health and the clinical management of patients; immunoassay laboratory instruments and tests, which measure proteins as they act as antigens in the spread of disease, antibodies in the immune response spurred by disease, or markers of proper organ function and health; testing products to detect and monitor disease progression across a spectrum of therapeutic areas; and specialized diagnostic solutions.