Qiagen (NYSE:QGEN) Sees Large Volume Increase – Should You Buy?

Qiagen N.V. (NYSE:QGEN) shares saw strong trading volume on Thursday . Approximately 2,939,119 shares changed hands during trading, an increase of 25% from the previous session’s volume of 2,345,403 shares.The stock last traded at $42.3040 and had previously closed at $38.00.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

QGEN has been the subject of several research reports. Stifel Nicolaus set a $36.00 price objective on shares of Qiagen and gave the company a “hold” rating in a research note on Monday, May 18th. Weiss Ratings downgraded shares of Qiagen from a “hold (c-)” rating to a “sell (d+)” rating in a research note on Friday, May 29th. Wall Street Zen lowered shares of Qiagen from a “buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a report on Saturday, March 28th. JPMorgan Chase & Co. reduced their price objective on shares of Qiagen from $60.00 to $45.00 and set an “overweight” rating on the stock in a research note on Wednesday, April 29th. Finally, Barclays set a $38.00 target price on Qiagen and gave the stock an “equal weight” rating in a research report on Wednesday, April 29th. One analyst has rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, four have issued a Buy rating, seven have given a Hold rating and one has given a Sell rating to the company’s stock. Based on data from MarketBeat, Qiagen presently has an average rating of “Hold” and a consensus price target of $43.15.

Qiagen Stock Up 9.9%

The company has a quick ratio of 2.57, a current ratio of 3.21 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.49. The company has a market capitalization of $8.61 billion, a PE ratio of 21.89, a P/E/G ratio of 3.86 and a beta of 0.64. The stock has a 50-day moving average of $36.27 and a 200 day moving average of $42.65.

Qiagen (NYSE:QGEN) last issued its quarterly earnings results on Thursday, May 7th. The company reported $0.54 EPS for the quarter, meeting analysts’ consensus estimates of $0.54. The firm had revenue of $492.32 million for the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $496.15 million. Qiagen had a return on equity of 14.40% and a net margin of 19.16%.During the same quarter in the prior year, the firm earned $0.56 EPS. Sell-side analysts anticipate that Qiagen N.V. will post 2.43 EPS for the current year.

Qiagen Increases Dividend

The company also recently announced an annual dividend, which will be paid on Tuesday, July 14th. Investors of record on Tuesday, July 7th will be paid a $0.35 dividend. This is a boost from Qiagen’s previous annual dividend of $0.26. This represents a yield of 90.0%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Tuesday, July 7th. Qiagen’s payout ratio is currently 18.32%.

Institutional Investors Weigh In On Qiagen

A number of hedge funds and other institutional investors have recently modified their holdings of the stock. Boston Partners bought a new stake in Qiagen during the 3rd quarter valued at $179,450,000. Norges Bank purchased a new position in shares of Qiagen in the fourth quarter valued at about $166,500,000. Dimensional Fund Advisors LP bought a new position in shares of Qiagen during the third quarter valued at about $58,079,000. Price T Rowe Associates Inc. MD raised its stake in shares of Qiagen by 12.1% during the fourth quarter. Price T Rowe Associates Inc. MD now owns 8,429,424 shares of the company’s stock valued at $379,072,000 after acquiring an additional 906,589 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Deutsche Bank AG boosted its holdings in shares of Qiagen by 9.7% during the fourth quarter. Deutsche Bank AG now owns 7,907,801 shares of the company’s stock worth $355,614,000 after purchasing an additional 697,342 shares during the period. Institutional investors own 70.00% of the company’s stock.

Qiagen Company Profile

Qiagen NV (NYSE: QGEN) is a global provider of sample and assay technologies designed to enable molecular testing in the fields of molecular diagnostics, applied testing, academic research and pharmaceutical development. The company’s solutions span the full workflow of nucleic acid and protein analysis, offering customers standardized kits, instruments and software tools that streamline the preparation, detection and quantification of DNA, RNA and proteins.

The company’s product portfolio includes nucleic acid extraction and purification systems, polymerase chain reaction (PCR) reagents and instrumentation, digital PCR platforms, next-generation sequencing (NGS) library‐preparation kits and proteomics solutions.