Wellington Management Group LLP Increases Holdings in Geron Co. (NASDAQ:GERN)

Wellington Management Group LLP raised its stake in shares of Geron Co. (NASDAQ:GERN - Free Report) by 6.7% in the fourth quarter, according to its most recent Form 13F filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The fund owned 13,510,114 shares of the biopharmaceutical company's stock after buying an additional 847,710 shares during the quarter. Wellington Management Group LLP owned about 2.12% of Geron worth $47,826,000 at the end of the most recent quarter.

A number of other large investors have also added to or reduced their stakes in GERN. Vanguard Group Inc. increased its holdings in shares of Geron by 3.4% in the 4th quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 33,538,822 shares of the biopharmaceutical company's stock worth $118,727,000 after purchasing an additional 1,088,912 shares in the last quarter. Janus Henderson Group PLC increased its holdings in shares of Geron by 20.0% in the 4th quarter. Janus Henderson Group PLC now owns 27,082,461 shares of the biopharmaceutical company's stock worth $95,769,000 after purchasing an additional 4,516,615 shares in the last quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC increased its holdings in shares of Geron by 0.6% in the 4th quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC now owns 13,141,514 shares of the biopharmaceutical company's stock worth $46,531,000 after purchasing an additional 73,515 shares in the last quarter. Woodline Partners LP increased its holdings in shares of Geron by 64.6% in the 4th quarter. Woodline Partners LP now owns 11,587,344 shares of the biopharmaceutical company's stock worth $41,019,000 after purchasing an additional 4,549,031 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Vestal Point Capital LP increased its holdings in shares of Geron by 947.6% in the 4th quarter. Vestal Point Capital LP now owns 11,000,000 shares of the biopharmaceutical company's stock worth $38,940,000 after purchasing an additional 9,950,000 shares in the last quarter. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 73.71% of the company's stock.

Wall Street Analyst Weigh In

GERN has been the subject of a number of research analyst reports. B. Riley lowered Geron from a "buy" rating to a "neutral" rating and reduced their target price for the stock from $3.50 to $2.00 in a report on Thursday, February 27th. HC Wainwright reissued a "neutral" rating on shares of Geron in a report on Wednesday, March 12th. Scotiabank lowered Geron from a "sector outperform" rating to a "sector perform" rating and cut their price objective for the stock from $4.00 to $1.50 in a report on Thursday, May 8th. Stifel Nicolaus cut their price objective on Geron from $8.00 to $4.00 and set a "buy" rating for the company in a report on Thursday, February 27th. Finally, Barclays reaffirmed an "overweight" rating and issued a $4.00 price objective (down previously from $9.00) on shares of Geron in a report on Thursday, February 27th. One analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, three have issued a hold rating, five have assigned a buy rating and one has issued a strong buy rating to the company's stock. According to data from MarketBeat.com, Geron currently has a consensus rating of "Moderate Buy" and a consensus price target of $5.06.

Geron Stock Performance

Shares of GERN traded up $0.07 during trading hours on Friday, hitting $1.55. The stock had a trading volume of 24,140,885 shares, compared to its average volume of 11,838,703. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.04, a current ratio of 2.89 and a quick ratio of 2.74. Geron Co. has a 12 month low of $1.17 and a 12 month high of $5.34. The firm has a market capitalization of $984.04 million, a PE ratio of -4.83 and a beta of 0.76. The stock has a fifty day moving average price of $1.39 and a 200 day moving average price of $2.44.

Geron (NASDAQ:GERN - Get Free Report) last released its earnings results on Wednesday, May 7th. The biopharmaceutical company reported ($0.03) earnings per share for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of ($0.04) by $0.01. The company had revenue of $39.60 million for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $49.88 million. Geron had a negative return on equity of 67.53% and a negative net margin of 682.48%. Geron's quarterly revenue was up 12927.3% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same period in the previous year, the business earned ($0.07) earnings per share. Analysts anticipate that Geron Co. will post -0.25 EPS for the current year.

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.