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

Shares of Geron Corporation (NASDAQ:GERN - Get Free Report) have been given an average rating of "Moderate Buy" by the ten ratings firms that are covering the firm, Marketbeat.com reports. One research analyst has rated the stock with a sell recommendation, three have assigned a hold recommendation, five have assigned a buy recommendation and one has assigned a strong buy recommendation to the company. The average twelve-month target price among analysts that have issued ratings on the stock in the last year is $4.61.

GERN has been the subject of several recent analyst reports. Scotiabank downgraded Geron from a "sector outperform" rating to a "sector perform" rating and decreased their target price for the company from $4.00 to $1.50 in a research note on Thursday, May 8th. The Goldman Sachs Group assumed coverage on Geron in a report on Thursday, July 10th. They issued a "sell" rating and a $1.00 price target for the company.

Hedge Funds Weigh In On Geron

A number of hedge funds have recently modified their holdings of the stock. Xponance Inc. raised 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 buying an additional 4,829 shares in the last quarter. MIRAE ASSET GLOBAL ETFS HOLDINGS Ltd. raised its holdings in shares of Geron by 2.1% in the 1st quarter. MIRAE ASSET GLOBAL ETFS HOLDINGS Ltd. now owns 392,534 shares of the biopharmaceutical company's stock worth $627,000 after buying an additional 8,123 shares in the last quarter. Frisch Financial Group Inc. raised its holdings in shares of Geron by 84.3% in the 1st quarter. Frisch Financial Group Inc. now owns 19,025 shares of the biopharmaceutical company's stock worth $30,000 after buying an additional 8,700 shares in the last quarter. HighTower Advisors LLC raised its holdings in shares of Geron by 33.1% in the 4th 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. Finally, Bank of Montreal Can raised its holdings in shares of Geron by 38.9% in the 4th quarter. Bank of Montreal Can now owns 33,147 shares of the biopharmaceutical company's stock worth $117,000 after buying an additional 9,277 shares in the last quarter. 73.71% of the stock is owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

Geron Stock Performance

NASDAQ:GERN traded up $0.01 during mid-day trading on Tuesday, hitting $1.27. 8,005,992 shares of the company's stock traded hands, compared to its average volume of 11,235,717. The firm has a 50 day moving average of $1.43 and a two-hundred day moving average of $1.91. Geron has a 12 month low of $1.17 and a 12 month high of $4.94. The firm has a market capitalization of $808.89 million, a price-to-earnings ratio of -6.05 and a beta of 0.64. The company has a current ratio of 7.87, a quick ratio of 6.97 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.44.

Geron (NASDAQ:GERN - Get Free Report) last announced 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. Geron had a negative return on equity of 47.86% and a negative net margin of 119.54%. The firm had revenue of $39.60 million during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $49.88 million. During the same quarter in the prior year, the company earned ($0.07) EPS. The firm's revenue for the quarter was up 12927.3% compared to the same quarter last year. On average, equities 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.