Pacer Advisors Inc. Increases Stock Holdings in Illumina, Inc. (NASDAQ:ILMN)

Pacer Advisors Inc. increased its holdings in Illumina, Inc. (NASDAQ:ILMN) by 2,292.9% in the first quarter, according to the company in its most recent Form 13F filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission. The firm owned 565,680 shares of the life sciences company’s stock after purchasing an additional 542,040 shares during the period. Pacer Advisors Inc.’s holdings in Illumina were worth $44,881,000 as of its most recent SEC filing.

A number of other hedge funds and other institutional investors have also made changes to their positions in the business. Capital World Investors grew its position in shares of Illumina by 408.6% in the fourth quarter. Capital World Investors now owns 18,025,301 shares of the life sciences company’s stock valued at $2,408,721,000 after purchasing an additional 14,481,232 shares during the period. WCM Investment Management LLC grew its position in shares of Illumina by 1.2% in the first quarter. WCM Investment Management LLC now owns 4,179,011 shares of the life sciences company’s stock valued at $334,321,000 after purchasing an additional 49,156 shares during the period. Brown Advisory Inc. grew its position in Illumina by 52.1% during the first quarter. Brown Advisory Inc. now owns 2,909,228 shares of the life sciences company’s stock valued at $230,818,000 after acquiring an additional 996,589 shares during the period. Norges Bank purchased a new stake in Illumina during the fourth quarter valued at about $228,714,000. Finally, Northern Trust Corp grew its position in Illumina by 26.9% during the fourth quarter. Northern Trust Corp now owns 1,652,935 shares of the life sciences company’s stock valued at $220,882,000 after acquiring an additional 349,878 shares during the period. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 89.42% of the company’s stock.

Insider Activity at Illumina

In other news, CFO Ankur Dhingra acquired 6,100 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction on Monday, May 12th. The shares were purchased at an average price of $81.21 per share, for a total transaction of $495,381.00. Following the completion of the purchase, the chief financial officer directly owned 24,906 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $2,022,616.26. This represents a 32.44% increase in their position. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which can be accessed through this hyperlink. Company insiders own 2.60% of the company’s stock.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

ILMN has been the subject of a number of research reports. Stephens reissued an “overweight” rating and set a $105.00 price target on shares of Illumina in a research report on Tuesday, May 20th. JPMorgan Chase & Co. lowered their price target on Illumina from $120.00 to $85.00 and set a “neutral” rating for the company in a research report on Friday, May 9th. Citigroup downgraded Illumina from a “hold” rating to a “strong sell” rating and lowered their price target for the company from $85.00 to $80.00 in a research report on Wednesday, July 9th. Morgan Stanley lowered their price target on Illumina from $136.00 to $100.00 and set an “equal weight” rating for the company in a research report on Monday, May 12th. Finally, Barclays reissued an “underweight” rating and set a $85.00 price target (up previously from $77.00) on shares of Illumina in a research report on Tuesday, June 24th. Two research analysts have rated the stock with a sell rating, nine have issued a hold rating, nine have assigned a buy rating and one has issued a strong buy rating to the stock. According to MarketBeat, Illumina presently has an average rating of “Hold” and a consensus price target of $125.11.

Illumina Trading Up 1.5%

NASDAQ:ILMN opened at $109.30 on Friday. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.63, a quick ratio of 1.48 and a current ratio of 1.86. Illumina, Inc. has a one year low of $68.70 and a one year high of $156.66. The business’s 50-day simple moving average is $91.50 and its 200 day simple moving average is $94.09. The stock has a market cap of $17.30 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of -18.01, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 2.10 and a beta of 1.36.

Illumina (NASDAQ:ILMN) last released its quarterly earnings results on Thursday, May 8th. The life sciences company reported $0.97 EPS for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $0.96 by $0.01. Illumina had a positive return on equity of 25.54% and a negative net margin of 22.25%. The business had revenue of $1.04 billion for the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $1.03 billion. During the same quarter in the previous year, the firm posted $0.98 earnings per share. The company’s revenue was down 1.4% compared to the same quarter last year. As a group, sell-side analysts predict that Illumina, Inc. will post 4.51 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Illumina 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.