Geron Corporation (NASDAQ:GERN) Receives Average Rating of "Moderate Buy" from Brokerages

Key Points

• Geron Corporation (NASDAQ:GERN) has received an average rating of "Moderate Buy" from nine analysts, with the average 12-month price target set at $4.1875.
• Institutional investors recently increased their stakes, with RA Capital Management boosting its stake by 101.2% to hold over 60 million shares.
• Geron reported a quarterly revenue of $49.04 million, significantly up 5455.6% year-over-year, surpassing analyst expectations.

Shares of Geron Corporation (NASDAQ:GERN - Get Free Report) have been assigned an average recommendation of "Moderate Buy" from the nine ratings firms that are currently covering the firm, Marketbeat reports. One analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, three have issued a hold rating, four have issued a buy rating and one has given a strong buy rating to the company. The average 1-year price objective among analysts that have covered the stock in the last year is $4.1875.

Several analysts recently commented on GERN shares. The Goldman Sachs Group started coverage on Geron in a research note on Thursday, July 10th. They issued a "sell" rating and a $1.00 price target on the stock. Scotiabank lowered Geron from a "sector outperform" rating to a "sector perform" rating and decreased their price target for the company from $4.00 to $1.50 in a research note on Thursday, May 8th.

Hedge Funds Weigh In On Geron

Institutional investors and hedge funds have recently bought and sold shares of the business. MIRAE ASSET GLOBAL ETFS HOLDINGS Ltd. increased its holdings in Geron by 2.1% in the first quarter. MIRAE ASSET GLOBAL ETFS HOLDINGS Ltd. now owns 392,534 shares of the biopharmaceutical company's stock valued at $627,000 after purchasing an additional 8,123 shares during the last quarter. Frisch Financial Group Inc. increased its holdings in Geron by 84.3% in the first quarter. Frisch Financial Group Inc. now owns 19,025 shares of the biopharmaceutical company's stock valued at $30,000 after purchasing an additional 8,700 shares during the last quarter. Bank of Montreal Can increased its holdings in Geron by 38.9% in the fourth quarter. Bank of Montreal Can now owns 33,147 shares of the biopharmaceutical company's stock valued at $117,000 after purchasing an additional 9,277 shares during the last quarter. Integrated Wealth Concepts LLC bought a new stake in shares of Geron in the fourth quarter worth about $36,000. Finally, Savant Capital LLC increased its holdings in shares of Geron by 73.8% in the second quarter. Savant Capital LLC now owns 26,074 shares of the biopharmaceutical company's stock worth $37,000 after acquiring an additional 11,074 shares in the last quarter. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 73.71% of the company's stock.

Geron Stock Performance

NASDAQ GERN traded down $0.01 during trading on Friday, hitting $1.36. The company's stock had a trading volume of 7,134,928 shares, compared to its average volume of 12,758,021. The company has a quick ratio of 6.79, a current ratio of 7.87 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.46. The firm has a 50 day moving average price of $1.39 and a 200 day moving average price of $1.64. The firm has a market cap of $864.52 million, a P/E ratio of -10.42 and a beta of 0.73. Geron has a 52 week low of $1.09 and a 52 week high of $4.83.

Geron (NASDAQ:GERN - Get Free Report) last released its quarterly earnings data on Wednesday, August 6th. The biopharmaceutical company reported ($0.02) earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating analysts' consensus estimates of ($0.03) by $0.01. The business had revenue of $49.04 million for the quarter, compared to analysts' expectations of $47.30 million. Geron had a negative return on equity of 31.37% and a negative net margin of 53.52%. Geron's quarterly revenue was up 5455.6% on a year-over-year basis. During the same period in the previous year, the business posted ($0.10) earnings per share. Equities research analysts forecast that Geron will post -0.25 earnings per share for the current fiscal 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.