Geron’s (GERN) “Buy” Rating Reiterated at Needham & Company LLC

Needham & Company LLC restated their buy rating on shares of Geron (NASDAQ:GERN) in a research note issued to investors on Friday,Benzinga reports. They currently have a $6.00 price objective on the biopharmaceutical company’s stock.

Other analysts have also recently issued reports about the company. Leerink Partners started coverage on Geron in a research report on Monday, September 9th. They set an “outperform” rating and a $7.00 price objective on the stock. HC Wainwright reissued a “buy” rating and issued a $9.00 price target on shares of Geron in a report on Tuesday, December 10th. Barclays upgraded shares of Geron to a “strong-buy” rating in a research note on Friday, November 29th. Leerink Partnrs upgraded shares of Geron to a “strong-buy” rating in a research report on Monday, September 9th. Finally, Scotiabank began coverage on shares of Geron in a research report on Wednesday, October 16th. They issued a “sector outperform” rating and a $6.00 price target for the company. One research analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, one has given a hold rating, eight have given a buy rating and two have assigned a strong buy rating to the company’s stock. According to data from MarketBeat, the company presently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $7.15.

Geron Stock Performance

NASDAQ GERN opened at $3.86 on Friday. The company’s fifty day moving average is $4.07 and its two-hundred day moving average is $4.35. Geron has a 52-week low of $1.64 and a 52-week high of $5.34. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.04, a current ratio of 2.89 and a quick ratio of 2.74. The firm has a market capitalization of $2.33 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of -12.06 and a beta of 0.51.

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

Hedge Funds Weigh In On Geron

Several institutional investors have recently bought and sold shares of the business. RTW Investments LP acquired a new stake in shares of Geron in the third quarter valued at $200,268,000. State Street Corp increased its position in Geron by 28.4% in the 3rd quarter. State Street Corp now owns 28,961,671 shares of the biopharmaceutical company’s stock valued at $131,486,000 after acquiring an additional 6,413,204 shares in the last quarter. Darwin Global Management Ltd. bought a new position in shares of Geron in the second quarter worth about $106,185,000. Janus Henderson Group PLC raised its stake 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 worth $102,193,000 after acquiring an additional 13,163,889 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Holocene Advisors LP acquired a new position in shares of Geron during the third quarter worth approximately $82,498,000. Institutional investors own 73.71% of the company’s stock.

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.