Xponance Inc. Purchases 5,689 Shares of Geron Co. (NASDAQ:GERN)

Xponance Inc. lifted its stake in shares of Geron Co. (NASDAQ:GERN) by 18.5% in the 2nd quarter, according to its most recent Form 13F filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission. The institutional investor owned 36,473 shares of the biopharmaceutical company’s stock after acquiring an additional 5,689 shares during the period. Xponance Inc.’s holdings in Geron were worth $155,000 at the end of the most recent quarter.

A number of other hedge funds and other institutional investors have also made changes to their positions in GERN. Farallon Capital Management LLC bought a new position in Geron during the 1st quarter worth about $24,734,000. Affinity Asset Advisors LLC bought a new stake in shares of Geron in the first quarter valued at about $8,250,000. Price T Rowe Associates Inc. MD lifted its holdings in shares of Geron by 999.7% in the first quarter. Price T Rowe Associates Inc. MD now owns 2,064,963 shares of the biopharmaceutical company’s stock valued at $6,815,000 after purchasing an additional 1,877,184 shares in the last quarter. Altitude Crest Partners Inc. bought a new stake in shares of Geron in the first quarter valued at about $5,054,000. Finally, Vanguard Group Inc. lifted its holdings in shares of Geron by 4.6% in the first quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 29,869,287 shares of the biopharmaceutical company’s stock valued at $98,569,000 after purchasing an additional 1,304,713 shares in the last quarter. 73.71% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

Insider Buying and Selling at Geron

In other Geron news, COO Andrew J. Grethlein sold 674,348 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Monday, July 8th. The stock was sold at an average price of $4.56, for a total value of $3,075,026.88. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which is accessible through this link. Corporate insiders own 3.10% of the company’s stock.

Geron Price Performance

NASDAQ:GERN opened at $4.44 on Thursday. The company has a quick ratio of 3.60, a current ratio of 3.61 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.12. The stock’s 50 day moving average price is $4.53 and its two-hundred day moving average price is $4.16. The firm has a market capitalization of $2.63 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of -12.69 and a beta of 0.50. Geron Co. has a 12-month low of $1.64 and a 12-month high of $5.34.

Geron (NASDAQ:GERN) last released its quarterly earnings data on Thursday, August 8th. The biopharmaceutical company reported ($0.10) earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, meeting the consensus estimate of ($0.10). The firm had revenue of $0.88 million for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $0.34 million. Geron had a negative return on equity of 73.79% and a negative net margin of 15,990.68%. The business’s revenue for the quarter was up 2941.4% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same quarter in the prior year, the company earned ($0.09) earnings per share. On average, analysts anticipate that Geron Co. will post -0.34 earnings per share for the current year.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

A number of analysts have recently commented on GERN shares. Leerink Partnrs upgraded Geron to a “strong-buy” rating in a report on Monday, September 9th. Leerink Partners started coverage on Geron in a report on Monday, September 9th. They issued an “outperform” rating and a $7.00 price target on the stock. Stifel Nicolaus boosted their price target on Geron from $6.00 to $7.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a report on Monday, June 10th. StockNews.com upgraded Geron to a “sell” rating in a report on Monday, August 5th. Finally, Wedbush reiterated an “outperform” rating and set a $8.00 target price on shares of Geron in a report on Thursday, August 8th. One research analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, one has issued a hold rating, seven have assigned a buy rating and one has issued a strong buy rating to the company’s stock. Based on data from MarketBeat, the stock presently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus target price of $7.06.

About Geron

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.