Woodline Partners LP Has $41.02 Million Position in Geron Co. (NASDAQ:GERN)

Woodline Partners LP boosted its holdings in Geron Co. (NASDAQ:GERN - Free Report) by 64.6% during the fourth quarter, according to the company in its most recent Form 13F filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission. The firm owned 11,587,344 shares of the biopharmaceutical company's stock after acquiring an additional 4,549,031 shares during the quarter. Woodline Partners LP owned 1.92% of Geron worth $41,019,000 at the end of the most recent quarter.

Other hedge funds have also recently added to or reduced their stakes in the company. Xponance Inc. grew its holdings in shares of Geron by 12.9% in the 4th quarter. Xponance Inc. now owns 42,401 shares of the biopharmaceutical company's stock worth $150,000 after purchasing an additional 4,829 shares during the last quarter. KBC Group NV boosted its position in Geron by 45.1% in the fourth quarter. KBC Group NV now owns 24,414 shares of the biopharmaceutical company's stock valued at $86,000 after buying an additional 7,592 shares in the last quarter. SBI Securities Co. Ltd. bought a new stake in Geron during the fourth quarter worth about $28,000. Lazari Capital Management Inc. increased its holdings in shares of Geron by 11.7% during the fourth quarter. Lazari Capital Management Inc. now owns 76,424 shares of the biopharmaceutical company's stock worth $271,000 after buying an additional 8,000 shares in the last quarter. Finally, HighTower Advisors LLC increased its holdings in shares of Geron by 33.1% during the fourth quarter. HighTower Advisors LLC now owns 36,041 shares of the biopharmaceutical company's stock worth $128,000 after buying an additional 8,967 shares in the last quarter. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 73.71% of the company's stock.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

A number of research firms recently commented on GERN. Barclays restated an "overweight" rating and set a $4.00 price target (down from $9.00) on shares of Geron in a research report on Thursday, February 27th. Stifel Nicolaus reduced their price objective on Geron from $8.00 to $4.00 and set a "buy" rating on the stock in a research note on Thursday, February 27th. Scotiabank lowered Geron from a "sector outperform" rating to a "sector perform" rating and lowered their target price for the company from $4.00 to $1.50 in a research note on Thursday, May 8th. Needham & Company LLC reaffirmed a "buy" rating and issued a $5.00 price target on shares of Geron in a report on Wednesday, March 12th. Finally, HC Wainwright reissued a "neutral" rating on shares of Geron in a report on Wednesday, March 12th. One research analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, three have assigned a hold rating, five have assigned a buy rating and one has given a strong buy rating to the company's stock. According to MarketBeat, the company has a consensus rating of "Moderate Buy" and a consensus target price of $5.06.

Geron Trading Up 9.4%

Shares of GERN opened at $1.39 on Tuesday. The stock's fifty day simple moving average is $1.44 and its 200-day simple moving average is $2.59. The firm has a market capitalization of $885.32 million, a PE ratio of -4.34 and a beta of 0.76. Geron Co. has a 12-month low of $1.17 and a 12-month high of $5.34. 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 announced its quarterly earnings data on Wednesday, May 7th. The biopharmaceutical company reported ($0.03) earnings per share for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of ($0.04) by $0.01. The firm had revenue of $39.60 million during the quarter, compared to analysts' expectations of $49.88 million. Geron had a negative return on equity of 67.53% and a negative net margin of 682.48%. The company's quarterly revenue was up 12927.3% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same period in the previous year, the business posted ($0.07) EPS. As a group, research analysts predict that Geron Co. will post -0.25 earnings per share for the current 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.

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