Needham & Company LLC Reaffirms “Buy” Rating for Geron (NASDAQ:GERN)

Needham & Company LLC reissued their buy rating on shares of Geron (NASDAQ:GERN) in a research report released on Wednesday morning,Benzinga reports. Needham & Company LLC currently has a $5.00 price target on the biopharmaceutical company’s stock.

Several other research analysts have also recently commented on the stock. Stifel Nicolaus decreased their target price on shares of Geron from $8.00 to $4.00 and set a “buy” rating for the company in a report on Thursday, February 27th. Barclays reiterated an “overweight” rating and issued a $4.00 target price (down from $9.00) on shares of Geron in a report on Thursday, February 27th. Scotiabank decreased their target price on shares of Geron from $6.00 to $4.00 and set a “sector outperform” rating for the company in a report on Thursday, February 27th. HC Wainwright cut shares of Geron from a “buy” rating to a “neutral” rating in a report on Wednesday, February 26th. Finally, B. Riley cut shares of Geron from a “buy” rating to a “neutral” rating and decreased their price target for the stock from $3.50 to $2.00 in a report on Thursday, February 27th. One research analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, three have given a hold rating, eight have issued a buy rating and one has given a strong buy rating to the company. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, Geron has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus price target of $5.68.

Geron Stock Performance

NASDAQ:GERN opened at $1.77 on Wednesday. Geron has a twelve month low of $1.46 and a twelve month high of $5.34. The company has a current ratio of 2.89, a quick ratio of 2.74 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.04. The company has a 50-day moving average of $2.69 and a 200-day moving average of $3.62. The firm has a market cap of $1.13 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of -5.53 and a beta of 0.53.

Geron (NASDAQ:GERN) last announced its earnings results on Wednesday, February 26th. The biopharmaceutical company reported ($0.04) EPS for the quarter, hitting the consensus estimate of ($0.04). Geron had a negative net margin of 682.48% and a negative return on equity of 67.53%. The company had revenue of $47.54 million during the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $45.29 million. Analysts forecast that Geron will post -0.25 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Institutional Trading of Geron

A number of institutional investors have recently added to or reduced their stakes in GERN. RTW Investments LP acquired a new stake in Geron in the third quarter valued at approximately $200,268,000. Holocene Advisors LP acquired a new stake in Geron in the third quarter valued at approximately $82,498,000. Janus Henderson Group PLC lifted its stake in 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 acquiring an additional 13,163,889 shares during the last quarter. Vestal Point Capital LP lifted its stake in Geron by 947.6% in the fourth quarter. Vestal Point Capital LP now owns 11,000,000 shares of the biopharmaceutical company’s stock valued at $38,940,000 after acquiring an additional 9,950,000 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Braidwell LP acquired a new stake in Geron in the fourth quarter valued at approximately $24,802,000. 73.71% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

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.