J. Goldman & Co LP Acquires 1,493,445 Shares of Geron Co. (NASDAQ:GERN)

J. Goldman & Co LP raised its holdings in Geron Co. (NASDAQ:GERN) by 847.4% during the 4th quarter, according to its most recent filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission. The fund owned 1,669,684 shares of the biopharmaceutical company’s stock after acquiring an additional 1,493,445 shares during the quarter. J. Goldman & Co LP’s holdings in Geron were worth $5,911,000 as of its most recent filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission.

A number of other hedge funds and other institutional investors have also bought and sold shares of the business. Braidwell LP bought a new position in Geron in the fourth quarter worth approximately $24,802,000. Boxer Capital Management LLC purchased a new stake in shares of Geron in the 4th quarter worth $21,240,000. Janus Henderson Group PLC grew its position in shares of Geron by 20.0% during the 4th quarter. Janus Henderson Group PLC now owns 27,082,461 shares of the biopharmaceutical company’s stock worth $95,769,000 after buying an additional 4,516,615 shares in the last quarter. Segall Bryant & Hamill LLC increased its stake in shares of Geron by 82.6% during the fourth quarter. Segall Bryant & Hamill LLC now owns 7,446,275 shares of the biopharmaceutical company’s stock valued at $26,360,000 after buying an additional 3,369,196 shares during the period. Finally, Tri Locum Partners LP bought a new stake in shares of Geron in the fourth quarter valued at about $8,754,000. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 73.71% of the company’s stock.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

GERN has been the topic of several recent research reports. Needham & Company LLC reiterated a “buy” rating and set a $5.00 target price on shares of Geron in a report on Wednesday, March 12th. Scotiabank downgraded shares of Geron from a “sector outperform” rating to a “sector perform” rating and dropped their price objective for the company from $4.00 to $1.50 in a research note on Thursday. HC Wainwright reissued a “neutral” rating on shares of Geron in a research note on Wednesday, March 12th. B. Riley lowered Geron from a “buy” rating to a “neutral” rating and lowered their target price for the stock from $3.50 to $2.00 in a report on Thursday, February 27th. Finally, Barclays reissued an “overweight” rating and issued a $4.00 price target (down from $9.00) on shares of Geron in a research report on Thursday, February 27th. One equities research analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, three have issued a hold rating, five have issued a buy rating and one has assigned a strong buy rating to the company’s stock. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, the company presently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus target price of $5.06.

Geron Stock Performance

Shares of GERN stock opened at $1.19 on Friday. Geron Co. has a 12-month low of $1.17 and a 12-month high of $5.34. The business’s fifty day simple moving average is $1.49 and its 200-day simple moving average is $2.73. The company has a current ratio of 2.89, a quick ratio of 2.74 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.04. The company has a market cap of $754.74 million, a PE ratio of -3.70 and a beta of 0.76.

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

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.