Janus Henderson Group PLC Increases Position in Geron Co. (NASDAQ:GERN)

Janus Henderson Group PLC lifted its holdings in shares of Geron Co. (NASDAQ:GERN - Free Report) by 20.0% during the 4th quarter, according to its most recent disclosure with the Securities & Exchange Commission. The fund owned 27,082,461 shares of the biopharmaceutical company's stock after purchasing an additional 4,516,615 shares during the quarter. Janus Henderson Group PLC owned about 4.48% of Geron worth $95,769,000 as of its most recent SEC filing.

Several other hedge funds have also made changes to their positions in GERN. Deutsche Bank AG raised its position in shares of Geron by 24.2% in the 4th quarter. Deutsche Bank AG now owns 892,910 shares of the biopharmaceutical company's stock worth $3,161,000 after buying an additional 174,156 shares during the period. Crestline Management LP purchased a new position in shares of Geron in the 4th quarter worth $64,000. Braidwell LP purchased a new position in shares of Geron in the 4th quarter worth $24,802,000. Bayesian Capital Management LP purchased a new position in shares of Geron in the 4th quarter worth $1,071,000. Finally, Bank of America Corp DE raised its position in shares of Geron by 47.8% in the 4th quarter. Bank of America Corp DE now owns 3,900,627 shares of the biopharmaceutical company's stock worth $13,808,000 after buying an additional 1,262,072 shares during the period. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 73.71% of the company's stock.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

Several research analysts recently weighed in on the company. B. Riley lowered Geron from a "buy" rating to a "neutral" rating and cut their target price for the stock from $3.50 to $2.00 in a research report on Thursday, February 27th. Scotiabank lowered Geron from a "sector outperform" rating to a "sector perform" rating and cut their target price for the stock from $4.00 to $1.50 in a research report on Thursday, May 8th. Barclays reaffirmed an "overweight" rating and issued a $4.00 target price (down from $9.00) on shares of Geron in a research report on Thursday, February 27th. HC Wainwright reaffirmed a "neutral" rating on shares of Geron in a research report on Wednesday, March 12th. Finally, Stifel Nicolaus cut their price objective on Geron from $8.00 to $4.00 and set a "buy" rating on the stock in a research report on Thursday, February 27th. One analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, three have issued a hold rating, five have given a buy rating and one has issued a strong buy rating to the company. According to data from MarketBeat, Geron has a consensus rating of "Moderate Buy" and a consensus price target of $5.06.

Geron Stock Up 5.0%

NASDAQ:GERN traded up $0.06 during mid-day trading on Friday, hitting $1.27. The company had a trading volume of 13,831,903 shares, compared to its average volume of 11,635,886. The business has a fifty day simple moving average of $1.44 and a 200-day simple moving average of $2.61. The company has a current ratio of 2.89, a quick ratio of 2.74 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.04. Geron Co. has a 1 year low of $1.17 and a 1 year high of $5.34. The firm has a market capitalization of $808.89 million, a price-to-earnings ratio of -3.97 and a beta of 0.76.

Geron (NASDAQ:GERN - Get Free Report) last released its quarterly earnings data on Wednesday, May 7th. The biopharmaceutical company reported ($0.03) EPS for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of ($0.04) by $0.01. Geron had a negative return on equity of 67.53% and a negative net margin of 682.48%. The company had revenue of $39.60 million for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $49.88 million. During the same period last year, the company posted ($0.07) earnings per share. The firm's revenue was up 12927.3% compared to the same quarter last year. Equities analysts forecast that Geron Co. will post -0.25 earnings per share for the current fiscal 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.