Principal Financial Group Inc. Cuts Holdings in Illumina, Inc. (NASDAQ:ILMN)

Principal Financial Group Inc. lowered its stake in shares of Illumina, Inc. (NASDAQ:ILMN - Free Report) by 23.9% in the first quarter, according to its most recent 13F filing with the SEC. The fund owned 364,472 shares of the life sciences company's stock after selling 114,747 shares during the period. Principal Financial Group Inc. owned about 0.23% of Illumina worth $28,917,000 at the end of the most recent quarter.

Other large investors also recently bought and sold shares of the company. Teacher Retirement System of Texas grew its stake in Illumina by 15.0% in the 1st quarter. Teacher Retirement System of Texas now owns 669,730 shares of the life sciences company's stock valued at $53,136,000 after acquiring an additional 87,252 shares during the period. WCM Investment Management LLC boosted its stake in Illumina by 1.2% during the first quarter. WCM Investment Management LLC now owns 4,179,011 shares of the life sciences company's stock worth $334,321,000 after buying an additional 49,156 shares during the last quarter. Keybank National Association OH grew its holdings in shares of Illumina by 0.8% in the first quarter. Keybank National Association OH now owns 395,066 shares of the life sciences company's stock valued at $31,345,000 after purchasing an additional 3,052 shares during the period. Vontobel Holding Ltd. grew its stake in shares of Illumina by 109.6% in the 1st quarter. Vontobel Holding Ltd. now owns 12,451 shares of the life sciences company's stock valued at $988,000 after buying an additional 6,510 shares during the period. Finally, Hixon Zuercher LLC increased its stake in Illumina by 3.2% during the first quarter. Hixon Zuercher LLC now owns 9,445 shares of the life sciences company's stock worth $749,000 after acquiring an additional 297 shares during the last quarter. 89.42% of the stock is owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

Illumina Price Performance

Shares of NASDAQ ILMN traded down $0.80 during trading on Friday, hitting $99.25. 1,998,677 shares of the company were exchanged, compared to its average volume of 2,153,999. The company has a market cap of $15.71 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of -16.35, a PEG ratio of 1.95 and a beta of 1.36. Illumina, Inc. has a 1 year low of $68.70 and a 1 year high of $156.66. The firm's fifty day moving average price is $87.18 and its 200 day moving average price is $96.48. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.63, a current ratio of 1.86 and a quick ratio of 1.48.

Illumina (NASDAQ:ILMN - Get Free Report) last posted its earnings results on Thursday, May 8th. The life sciences company reported $0.97 earnings per share for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $0.96 by $0.01. Illumina had a positive return on equity of 25.54% and a negative net margin of 22.25%. The company had revenue of $1.04 billion for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $1.03 billion. During the same quarter in the prior year, the company earned $0.98 earnings per share. Illumina's revenue was down 1.4% compared to the same quarter last year. On average, sell-side analysts expect that Illumina, Inc. will post 4.51 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Insider Activity at Illumina

In other news, CFO Ankur Dhingra bought 6,100 shares of the stock in a transaction on Monday, May 12th. The stock was purchased at an average cost of $81.21 per share, with a total value of $495,381.00. Following the purchase, the chief financial officer owned 24,906 shares of the company's stock, valued at approximately $2,022,616.26. The trade was a 32.44% increase in their ownership of the stock. The purchase was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which is available at this link. 2.60% of the stock is currently owned by company insiders.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

A number of equities research analysts have recently issued reports on ILMN shares. Barclays reissued an "underweight" rating and issued a $85.00 price target (up from $77.00) on shares of Illumina in a research note on Tuesday, June 24th. Evercore ISI boosted their price objective on Illumina from $116.00 to $128.00 and gave the stock an "outperform" rating in a research report on Tuesday. Morgan Stanley cut their price target on Illumina from $136.00 to $100.00 and set an "equal weight" rating on the stock in a research note on Monday, May 12th. JPMorgan Chase & Co. reduced their price objective on shares of Illumina from $120.00 to $85.00 and set a "neutral" rating for the company in a research report on Friday, May 9th. Finally, Piper Sandler decreased their target price on Illumina from $190.00 to $185.00 and set an "overweight" rating for the company in a research report on Thursday, May 15th. Two research analysts have rated the stock with a sell rating, nine have assigned a hold rating, nine have assigned a buy rating and one has assigned a strong buy rating to the company. According to MarketBeat, the stock presently has a consensus rating of "Hold" and an average target price of $125.11.

Illumina Company Profile

Illumina, Inc offers sequencing- and array-based solutions for genetic and genomic analysis in the United States, Singapore, the United Kingdom, and internationally. It operates through Core Illumina and GRAIL segments. The company offers sequencing and array-based instruments and consumables, which include reagents, flow cells, and library preparation; whole-genome sequencing kits, which sequence entire genomes of various size and complexity; and targeted resequencing kits, which sequence exomes, specific genes, and RNA or other genomic regions of interest.