Illumina (NASDAQ:ILMN) Shares Gap Down After Analyst Downgrade

Illumina, Inc. (NASDAQ:ILMN) gapped down before the market opened on Tuesday after Barclays lowered their price target on the stock from $145.00 to $130.00. The stock had previously closed at $131.10, but opened at $125.17. Barclays currently has an equal weight rating on the stock. Illumina shares last traded at $125.01, with a volume of 816,967 shares.

A number of other brokerages have also issued reports on ILMN. Hsbc Global Res raised shares of Illumina from a “hold” rating to a “strong-buy” rating and set a $180.00 target price for the company in a research note on Thursday, October 17th. UBS Group upped their price objective on shares of Illumina from $133.00 to $145.00 and gave the company a “neutral” rating in a report on Tuesday, November 5th. Leerink Partners upped their target price on Illumina from $160.00 to $200.00 and gave the company an “outperform” rating in a research report on Thursday, October 17th. Morgan Stanley lowered their price objective on Illumina from $156.00 to $150.00 and set an “equal weight” rating on the stock in a research report on Monday, January 13th. Finally, HSBC upgraded Illumina from a “hold” rating to a “buy” rating and set a $180.00 target price on the stock in a research report on Thursday, October 17th. Eight investment analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, eleven have given a buy rating and two have issued a strong buy rating to the company’s stock. According to MarketBeat, the stock currently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $164.84.

Hedge Funds Weigh In On Illumina

Hedge funds and other institutional investors have recently bought and sold shares of the company. Howard Capital Management Inc. increased its position in Illumina by 3.0% during the fourth quarter. Howard Capital Management Inc. now owns 5,380 shares of the life sciences company’s stock worth $719,000 after buying an additional 155 shares during the period. Cohen Capital Management Inc. acquired a new position in Illumina during the fourth quarter worth approximately $233,000. First Horizon Advisors Inc. increased its position in Illumina by 73.5% during the fourth quarter. First Horizon Advisors Inc. now owns 439 shares of the life sciences company’s stock worth $59,000 after buying an additional 186 shares during the period. Olympiad Research LP acquired a new position in Illumina during the fourth quarter worth approximately $448,000. Finally, Bank of Stockton increased its position in Illumina by 3.8% during the fourth quarter. Bank of Stockton now owns 2,162 shares of the life sciences company’s stock worth $289,000 after buying an additional 80 shares during the period. 89.42% of the stock is currently owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

Illumina Stock Performance

The company has a market cap of $19.76 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of -12.52 and a beta of 1.10. The firm has a 50-day simple moving average of $138.82 and a 200 day simple moving average of $135.32. The company has a quick ratio of 1.85, a current ratio of 2.43 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.94.

Illumina (NASDAQ:ILMN) last released its earnings results on Monday, November 4th. The life sciences company reported $1.14 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $0.88 by $0.26. The business had revenue of $1.08 billion for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $1.08 billion. Illumina had a positive return on equity of 7.29% and a negative net margin of 36.10%. The company’s revenue for the quarter was down 3.5% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same quarter in the previous year, the company posted $0.33 earnings per share. On average, sell-side analysts predict that Illumina, Inc. will post 4.13 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Illumina Company Profile

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.