State Street Corp Grows Holdings in Geron Co. (NASDAQ:GERN)

State Street Corp boosted its holdings in shares of Geron Co. (NASDAQ:GERN) by 28.4% during the 3rd quarter, according to its most recent 13F filing with the SEC. The fund owned 28,961,671 shares of the biopharmaceutical company’s stock after purchasing an additional 6,413,204 shares during the period. State Street Corp owned approximately 4.79% of Geron worth $131,486,000 as of its most recent filing with the SEC.

A number of other institutional investors also recently bought and sold shares of GERN. RTW Investments LP purchased a new position in shares of Geron during the third quarter worth about $200,268,000. Darwin Global Management Ltd. purchased a new position in shares of Geron in the 2nd quarter valued at approximately $106,185,000. Holocene Advisors LP acquired a new position in shares of Geron in the third quarter valued at approximately $82,498,000. Janus Henderson Group PLC increased its holdings in shares of Geron by 140.0% in the third quarter. Janus Henderson Group PLC now owns 22,565,846 shares of the biopharmaceutical company’s stock valued at $102,193,000 after purchasing an additional 13,163,889 shares during the period. Finally, Farallon Capital Management LLC raised its stake in shares of Geron by 124.6% during the second quarter. Farallon Capital Management LLC now owns 16,837,000 shares of the biopharmaceutical company’s stock worth $71,389,000 after purchasing an additional 9,342,000 shares during the last quarter. 73.71% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

A number of research firms recently weighed in on GERN. HC Wainwright reiterated a “buy” rating and issued a $9.00 price objective on shares of Geron in a research report on Tuesday, December 10th. Needham & Company LLC reiterated a “buy” rating and set a $6.00 price target on shares of Geron in a research note on Friday. Barclays upgraded shares of Geron to a “strong-buy” rating in a research report on Friday, November 29th. Scotiabank assumed coverage on Geron in a research report on Wednesday, October 16th. They set a “sector outperform” rating and a $6.00 target price on the stock. Finally, Leerink Partnrs raised Geron to a “strong-buy” rating in a report on Monday, September 9th. One analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, one has issued a hold rating, eight have issued a buy rating and two have given a strong buy rating to the company’s stock. According to data from MarketBeat.com, the company presently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $7.15.

Geron Stock Performance

Shares of GERN stock opened at $3.86 on Friday. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.04, a quick ratio of 2.74 and a current ratio of 2.89. The stock has a market cap of $2.33 billion, a PE ratio of -12.06 and a beta of 0.51. Geron Co. has a 1 year low of $1.64 and a 1 year high of $5.34. The stock has a fifty day moving average price of $4.07 and a 200 day moving average price of $4.35.

Geron (NASDAQ:GERN) last released its quarterly earnings data on Thursday, November 7th. The biopharmaceutical company reported ($0.04) EPS for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of ($0.09) by $0.05. Geron had a negative net margin of 682.48% and a negative return on equity of 67.53%. The business had revenue of $28.27 million for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $18.97 million. During the same period in the previous year, the firm earned ($0.08) EPS. The business’s revenue for the quarter was up 17138.4% compared to the same quarter last year. Sell-side analysts forecast that Geron Co. will post -0.25 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Geron Company Profile

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.