Illumina (NASDAQ:ILMN) Downgraded by Wall Street Zen to Hold

Key Points

• Illumina's stock rating has been downgraded from "buy" to "hold" by Wall Street Zen, indicating a more cautious outlook on the company’s performance.
• Despite the downgrade, several analysts maintain positive sentiments with one setting a target price of $128 and another at $105, highlighting mixed assessments of the stock.
• The company's recent quarterly earnings report showed an EPS of $1.19, surpassing estimates, although revenue declined by 4.8% year-over-year, which may concern investors.

Illumina (NASDAQ:ILMN - Get Free Report) was downgraded by stock analysts at Wall Street Zen from a "buy" rating to a "hold" rating in a research report issued to clients and investors on Saturday.

A number of other research firms have also recently commented on ILMN. Citigroup cut shares of Illumina from a "hold" rating to a "strong sell" rating and lowered their price target for the stock from $85.00 to $80.00 in a report on Wednesday, July 9th. Canaccord Genuity Group increased their price objective on shares of Illumina from $99.00 to $105.00 and gave the company a "hold" rating in a research report on Friday. Stephens reissued an "overweight" rating and set a $105.00 price target on shares of Illumina in a report on Tuesday, May 20th. Scotiabank cut shares of Illumina from a "sector outperform" rating to a "sector perform" rating and set a $125.00 price target for the company. in a research note on Friday, July 11th. Finally, Barclays boosted their price objective on shares of Illumina from $85.00 to $90.00 and gave the stock an "underweight" rating in a research note on Friday. Two equities research analysts have rated the stock with a sell rating, ten have assigned a hold rating, eight have issued a buy rating and one has assigned a strong buy rating to the stock. According to MarketBeat, the company has a consensus rating of "Hold" and an average price target of $127.47.

Illumina Trading Down 0.7%

NASDAQ:ILMN traded down $0.68 during mid-day trading on Friday, reaching $97.76. The company's stock had a trading volume of 2,482,450 shares, compared to its average volume of 2,413,386. Illumina has a twelve month low of $68.70 and a twelve month high of $156.66. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.66, a current ratio of 1.81 and a quick ratio of 1.41. The stock has a market cap of $15.48 billion, a P/E ratio of 12.37, a P/E/G ratio of 1.75 and a beta of 1.37. The company's fifty day simple moving average is $94.16 and its two-hundred day simple moving average is $92.01.

Illumina (NASDAQ:ILMN - Get Free Report) last announced its earnings results on Thursday, July 31st. The life sciences company reported $1.19 earnings per share for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $1.02 by $0.17. The firm had revenue of $1.06 billion during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $1.12 billion. Illumina had a return on equity of 28.93% and a net margin of 29.36%. The firm's revenue for the quarter was down 4.8% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same quarter in the prior year, the company earned $0.36 EPS. On average, equities analysts predict that Illumina will post 4.51 EPS for the current year.

Insider Buying and Selling

In other news, CFO Ankur Dhingra acquired 6,100 shares of Illumina stock in a transaction on Monday, May 12th. The stock was acquired at an average cost of $81.21 per share, with a total value of $495,381.00. Following the completion of the acquisition, the chief financial officer owned 24,906 shares in the company, valued at approximately $2,022,616.26. This trade represents a 32.44% increase in their ownership of the stock. The acquisition was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is accessible through this hyperlink. 0.17% of the stock is owned by insiders.

Institutional Inflows and Outflows

A number of institutional investors have recently made changes to their positions in ILMN. NewSquare Capital LLC increased its position in shares of Illumina by 604.9% in the 2nd quarter. NewSquare Capital LLC now owns 430 shares of the life sciences company's stock valued at $41,000 after acquiring an additional 369 shares during the period. Bryce Point Capital LLC acquired a new stake in shares of Illumina in the second quarter valued at $854,000. Next Capital Management LLC purchased a new stake in shares of Illumina in the 2nd quarter valued at about $341,000. Bank of Montreal Can raised its stake in Illumina by 1.8% during the 2nd quarter. Bank of Montreal Can now owns 116,536 shares of the life sciences company's stock valued at $11,119,000 after acquiring an additional 2,072 shares during the last quarter. Finally, South Dakota Investment Council grew its holdings in shares of Illumina by 54.5% in the 2nd quarter. South Dakota Investment Council now owns 32,608 shares of the life sciences company's stock worth $3,111,000 after acquiring an additional 11,500 shares during the period. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 89.42% of the company's stock.

About Illumina

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.