Geron (NASDAQ:GERN) Rating Lowered to Neutral at Robert W. Baird

Robert W. Baird lowered shares of Geron (NASDAQ:GERN) from an outperform rating to a neutral rating in a report published on Tuesday, MarketBeat Ratings reports. The firm currently has $4.50 price objective on the biopharmaceutical company’s stock.

Several other brokerages also recently commented on GERN. Needham & Company LLC restated a buy rating and issued a $5.00 price objective on shares of Geron in a research report on Thursday, April 11th. TD Cowen initiated coverage on Geron in a research report on Monday, April 29th. They issued a buy rating and a $10.00 price objective on the stock. The Goldman Sachs Group boosted their target price on Geron from $4.00 to $5.00 and gave the stock a buy rating in a research report on Friday, March 15th. Finally, Wedbush reiterated an outperform rating and issued a $6.00 target price on shares of Geron in a research report on Wednesday, April 10th. One research analyst has rated the stock with a hold rating and four have assigned a buy rating to the stock. According to data from MarketBeat, the stock presently has a consensus rating of Moderate Buy and a consensus price target of $6.10.

Geron Price Performance

Shares of Geron stock opened at $3.93 on Tuesday. The stock’s 50-day simple moving average is $3.10 and its 200-day simple moving average is $2.38. Geron has a 52 week low of $1.64 and a 52 week high of $4.30. The company has a market capitalization of $2.15 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of -11.91 and a beta of 0.55. The company has a quick ratio of 3.16, a current ratio of 3.16 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.14.

Geron (NASDAQ:GERN) last announced its quarterly earnings data on Wednesday, February 28th. The biopharmaceutical company reported ($0.09) EPS for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of ($0.10) by $0.01. Geron had a negative return on equity of 63.33% and a negative net margin of 77,691.14%. The business had revenue of $0.02 million for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $0.06 million. During the same period in the previous year, the business earned ($0.10) earnings per share. The business’s revenue was down 77.7% on a year-over-year basis. As a group, analysts expect that Geron will post -0.33 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Institutional Investors Weigh In On Geron

A number of hedge funds have recently made changes to their positions in GERN. RA Capital Management L.P. raised its position in Geron by 46.5% during the third quarter. RA Capital Management L.P. now owns 46,202,425 shares of the biopharmaceutical company’s stock valued at $97,949,000 after purchasing an additional 14,657,619 shares during the period. Vivo Capital LLC raised its position in Geron by 46.1% during the fourth quarter. Vivo Capital LLC now owns 24,143,681 shares of the biopharmaceutical company’s stock valued at $50,943,000 after purchasing an additional 7,619,047 shares during the period. Charles Schwab Investment Management Inc. raised its position in Geron by 172.4% during the third quarter. Charles Schwab Investment Management Inc. now owns 3,634,330 shares of the biopharmaceutical company’s stock valued at $7,705,000 after purchasing an additional 2,300,220 shares during the period. MPM Bioimpact LLC raised its position in Geron by 16.6% during the third quarter. MPM Bioimpact LLC now owns 10,712,481 shares of the biopharmaceutical company’s stock valued at $22,710,000 after purchasing an additional 1,521,191 shares during the period. Finally, Walleye Capital LLC raised its position in Geron by 146.5% during the third quarter. Walleye Capital LLC now owns 2,226,066 shares of the biopharmaceutical company’s stock valued at $4,719,000 after purchasing an additional 1,322,938 shares during the period. 73.71% of the stock is currently owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

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.