Segall Bryant & Hamill LLC Buys 3,369,196 Shares of Geron Co. (NASDAQ:GERN)

Segall Bryant & Hamill LLC increased its stake in Geron Co. (NASDAQ:GERN) by 82.6% in the 4th quarter, HoldingsChannel.com reports. The firm owned 7,446,275 shares of the biopharmaceutical company’s stock after acquiring an additional 3,369,196 shares during the period. Segall Bryant & Hamill LLC’s holdings in Geron were worth $26,360,000 at the end of the most recent quarter.

Several other large investors have also recently bought and sold shares of GERN. RTW Investments LP bought a new stake in shares of Geron during the third quarter worth $200,268,000. Vanguard Group Inc. increased its position in Geron by 3.4% in the fourth quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 33,538,822 shares of the biopharmaceutical company’s stock worth $118,727,000 after purchasing an additional 1,088,912 shares during the period. State Street Corp raised its holdings in Geron by 28.4% during the 3rd quarter. State Street Corp now owns 28,961,671 shares of the biopharmaceutical company’s stock worth $131,486,000 after purchasing an additional 6,413,204 shares during the last quarter. Janus Henderson Group PLC lifted its position in Geron by 140.0% during the 3rd quarter. Janus Henderson Group PLC now owns 22,565,846 shares of the biopharmaceutical company’s stock valued at $102,193,000 after purchasing an additional 13,163,889 shares during the period. Finally, Holocene Advisors LP bought a new position in shares of Geron in the 3rd quarter valued at about $82,498,000. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 73.71% of the company’s stock.

Geron Stock Down 3.8 %

Shares of GERN opened at $1.75 on Tuesday. The firm has a 50 day simple moving average of $2.39 and a two-hundred day simple moving average of $3.45. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.04, a current ratio of 2.89 and a quick ratio of 2.74. Geron Co. has a one year low of $1.46 and a one year high of $5.34. The company has a market cap of $1.11 billion, a P/E ratio of -5.47 and a beta of 0.53.

Geron (NASDAQ:GERN) last posted its quarterly earnings results on Wednesday, February 26th. The biopharmaceutical company reported ($0.04) EPS for the quarter, hitting analysts’ consensus estimates of ($0.04). The company had revenue of $47.54 million during the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $45.29 million. Geron had a negative return on equity of 67.53% and a negative net margin of 682.48%. Research analysts forecast that Geron Co. will post -0.25 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

A number of equities research analysts recently weighed in on GERN shares. Scotiabank dropped their price target on shares of Geron from $6.00 to $4.00 and set a “sector outperform” rating for the company in a research note on Thursday, February 27th. HC Wainwright reaffirmed a “neutral” rating on shares of Geron in a research note on Wednesday, March 12th. B. Riley downgraded shares of Geron from a “buy” rating to a “neutral” rating and dropped their target price for the stock from $3.50 to $2.00 in a report on Thursday, February 27th. Stifel Nicolaus reduced their price objective on shares of Geron from $8.00 to $4.00 and set a “buy” rating for the company in a research note on Thursday, February 27th. Finally, Needham & Company LLC reaffirmed a “buy” rating and issued a $5.00 target price on shares of Geron in a research report on Wednesday, March 12th. One analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, three have assigned a hold rating, seven have assigned a buy rating and one has given a strong buy rating to the company. According to MarketBeat.com, Geron presently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus price target of $5.75.

Geron 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.