Short Interest in Illumina, Inc. (NASDAQ:ILMN) Grows By 6.2%

Illumina, Inc. (NASDAQ:ILMN) was the recipient of a significant increase in short interest in August. As of August 31st, there was short interest totalling 4,470,000 shares, an increase of 6.2% from the August 15th total of 4,210,000 shares. Based on an average daily trading volume, of 2,440,000 shares, the short-interest ratio is presently 1.8 days.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

ILMN has been the topic of a number of recent research reports. Daiwa Capital Markets raised shares of Illumina from a “neutral” rating to a “buy” rating and lifted their price target for the company from $120.00 to $154.00 in a research report on Friday, August 16th. Royal Bank of Canada reissued an “outperform” rating and set a $242.00 target price on shares of Illumina in a research report on Wednesday, August 14th. Jefferies Financial Group initiated coverage on shares of Illumina in a research report on Monday, June 3rd. They set a “hold” rating and a $115.00 target price on the stock. Scotiabank reduced their target price on shares of Illumina from $176.00 to $164.00 and set a “sector outperform” rating on the stock in a research report on Thursday, August 15th. Finally, Piper Sandler reduced their target price on shares of Illumina from $200.00 to $195.00 and set an “overweight” rating on the stock in a research report on Tuesday, August 13th. One analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, nine have assigned a hold rating, thirteen have issued a buy rating and one has issued a strong buy rating to the company. According to data from MarketBeat.com, Illumina has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average price target of $151.05.

Hedge Funds Weigh In On Illumina

A number of institutional investors and hedge funds have recently bought and sold shares of the stock. Envestnet Portfolio Solutions Inc. lifted its holdings in Illumina by 426.0% in the 1st quarter. Envestnet Portfolio Solutions Inc. now owns 15,460 shares of the life sciences company’s stock valued at $2,123,000 after acquiring an additional 12,521 shares during the last quarter. Findlay Park Partners LLP purchased a new stake in shares of Illumina in the first quarter worth approximately $100,120,000. Jupiter Asset Management Ltd. acquired a new position in Illumina in the first quarter worth approximately $4,527,000. Norges Bank acquired a new position in Illumina in the fourth quarter worth approximately $264,636,000. Finally, US Bancorp DE increased its holdings in Illumina by 33.9% in the first quarter. US Bancorp DE now owns 31,600 shares of the life sciences company’s stock worth $4,339,000 after buying an additional 8,001 shares during the last quarter. Institutional investors own 89.42% of the company’s stock.

Illumina Stock Performance

ILMN stock traded up $0.76 during trading on Wednesday, hitting $130.97. 2,219,940 shares of the company’s stock traded hands, compared to its average volume of 2,041,640. The company has a quick ratio of 0.86, a current ratio of 1.11 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.04. Illumina has a 52 week low of $89.00 and a 52 week high of $148.19. The stock has a fifty day moving average price of $124.26 and a two-hundred day moving average price of $120.54. The stock has a market capitalization of $20.86 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of -15.98 and a beta of 1.15.

Illumina (NASDAQ:ILMN) last released its quarterly earnings results on Tuesday, August 6th. The life sciences company reported $0.36 EPS for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $0.12 by $0.24. The business had revenue of $1.11 billion during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $1.09 billion. Illumina had a negative net margin of 68.73% and a positive return on equity of 3.08%. The company’s quarterly revenue was down 5.4% on a year-over-year basis. During the same quarter in the prior year, the firm earned $0.32 earnings per share. As a group, equities analysts anticipate that Illumina will post 3.62 EPS for the current fiscal year.

About Illumina

Illumina, Inc offers sequencing- and array-based solutions for genetic and genomic analysis in the United States, Singapore, the United Kingdom, and internationally. It operates through Core Illumina and GRAIL segments. The company offers sequencing and array-based instruments and consumables, which include reagents, flow cells, and library preparation; whole-genome sequencing kits, which sequence entire genomes of various size and complexity; and targeted resequencing kits, which sequence exomes, specific genes, and RNA or other genomic regions of interest.