Point72 Asset Management L.P. Purchases Shares of 1,488,892 Geron Co. (NASDAQ:GERN)

Point72 Asset Management L.P. acquired a new position in shares of Geron Co. (NASDAQ:GERN - Free Report) in the fourth quarter, according to its most recent Form 13F filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The fund acquired 1,488,892 shares of the biopharmaceutical company's stock, valued at approximately $5,271,000. Point72 Asset Management L.P. owned approximately 0.25% of Geron as of its most recent filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

A number of other hedge funds and other institutional investors have also recently added to or reduced their stakes in GERN. Nvest Financial LLC bought a new position in shares of Geron in the fourth quarter valued at approximately $693,000. Charles Schwab Investment Management Inc. grew its holdings in shares of Geron by 1.7% in the fourth quarter. Charles Schwab Investment Management Inc. now owns 4,523,864 shares of the biopharmaceutical company's stock valued at $16,014,000 after acquiring an additional 73,482 shares in the last quarter. Barclays PLC grew its holdings in shares of Geron by 114.9% in the third quarter. Barclays PLC now owns 1,299,912 shares of the biopharmaceutical company's stock valued at $5,902,000 after acquiring an additional 694,931 shares in the last quarter. Renaissance Technologies LLC bought a new position in Geron during the fourth quarter valued at $5,143,000. Finally, Ameriprise Financial Inc. grew its holdings in Geron by 8.8% during the fourth quarter. Ameriprise Financial Inc. now owns 3,064,458 shares of the biopharmaceutical company's stock valued at $10,845,000 after purchasing an additional 247,018 shares during the period. 73.71% of the stock is owned by institutional investors.

Analyst Ratings Changes

Several equities analysts have weighed in on the company. HC Wainwright reissued a "neutral" rating on shares of Geron in a report on Wednesday, March 12th. B. Riley lowered Geron from a "buy" rating to a "neutral" rating and reduced their price objective for the company from $3.50 to $2.00 in a report on Thursday, February 27th. Stifel Nicolaus reduced 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. Scotiabank downgraded Geron from a "sector outperform" rating to a "sector perform" rating and dropped their target price for the stock from $4.00 to $1.50 in a research report on Thursday, May 8th. Finally, Needham & Company LLC restated a "buy" rating and set a $5.00 target price on shares of Geron in a research report on Wednesday, March 12th. One research analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, three have given a hold rating, five have issued a buy rating and one has issued a strong buy rating to the company's stock. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, the stock presently has a consensus rating of "Moderate Buy" and a consensus target price of $5.06.

Geron Price Performance

NASDAQ:GERN traded down $0.03 during trading hours on Friday, hitting $1.45. 11,880,486 shares of the company's stock traded hands, compared to its average volume of 11,776,645. The firm has a market cap of $923.53 million, a P/E ratio of -4.53 and a beta of 0.76. Geron Co. has a 52 week low of $1.17 and a 52 week high of $5.34. The business's fifty day simple moving average is $1.41 and its two-hundred day simple moving average is $2.52. The company has a quick ratio of 2.74, a current ratio of 2.89 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.04.

Geron (NASDAQ:GERN - Get Free Report) last posted its quarterly earnings data on Wednesday, May 7th. The biopharmaceutical company reported ($0.03) earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of ($0.04) by $0.01. The company had revenue of $39.60 million during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $49.88 million. Geron had a negative return on equity of 67.53% and a negative net margin of 682.48%. The firm's quarterly revenue was up 12927.3% on a year-over-year basis. During the same quarter last year, the company earned ($0.07) earnings per share. On average, research analysts anticipate 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.