RA Capital Management LP recently announced the acquisition of new stake in Geron Corp. (NASDAQ:GERN). The institutional investor has increased its shareholding in the Healthcare company by 46.47% to 46.2 million shares with purchase of 14.66 million shares. This fresh investment now brings its stake to 8.83% valued currently at $87.78 million. In addition, BlackRock Fund Advisors raised its holdings by 0.96 million to 33.1 million shares. And Deep Track Capital LP has lifted its position by 6.33% or 1.53 million shares – to 25.7 million shares.
With over 3.72 million Geron Corp. (GERN) shares trading Tuesday and a closing price of $1.97 on the day, the dollar volume was approximately $7.33 million. The shares have shown a negative half year performance of -39.57% and its price on 12/12/23 gained nearly 2.07%. Currently, there are 543.06M common shares owned by the public and among those 456.15M shares have been available to trade.
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An analysis of what Wall Street brokers have to say about the expected price targets for this stock gives us this picture: 6 analysts who have offered their price forecasts for GERN have a consensus price objective of $4.83. The analysts have set the share’s price value over the next 12 months at a high of $6.00 and a low of $4.00. The average price target is 59.21% above its recent price level and an upside to the estimated low will see the stock gain 50.75% over that period. But an upside of 67.17% will see the stock hit the forecast high price target while median target price for the stock is $5.00.
Insiders at the company have transacted a total of 27 times over the past 12 months, according to data filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). 19 of these insider trades were purchases, accounting for 2,050,012 shares. Insider sales of the common stock occurred on 8 occasions, with total insider shares sold totaling 2,194,719 shares.
The top 3 mutual fund holders in Geron Corp. are SPDR S&P Biotech ETF, Vanguard Total Stock Market ETF, and iShares Russell 2000 ETF. SPDR S&P Biotech ETF owns 16.49 million shares of the company’s stock, all valued at over $31.32 million. The company bought an additional 98534.0 shares recently to bring their total holdings to about 3.15% of the shares outstanding. iShares Russell 2000 ETF sold -0.12 million shares to bring its total holdings to over 11.54 million shares at a value of $21.93 million. iShares Russell 2000 ETF now owns shares totaling to 2.21% of the shares outstanding.
Shares of Geron Corp. (NASDAQ: GERN) opened at $1.95, up $0.02 from a prior closing price of $1.93. The company’s stock has a 5-day price change of 0.51% and -12.44% over the past three months. GERN shares are trading -18.60% year to date (YTD), with the 12-month market performance down to -13.60% lower. It has a 12-month low price of $1.68 and touched a high of $3.84 over the same period. GERN has an average intraday trading volume of 5.57 million shares. The stock is trading above its simple moving averages at the SMA20, SMA50, and SMA200, as the current price level is off by 1.21%, 4.70%, and -22.00% respectively.
Institutional ownership of Geron Corp. (NASDAQ: GERN) shares accounts for 53.85% of the company’s 543.06M shares outstanding. Mutual fund holders own 22.03%, while other institutional holders and individual stakeholders account for 33.89% and 1.96% respectively.
It has a market capitalization of $1.07B and a beta (3y monthly) value of 0.60. The earnings-per-share (ttm) stands at -$0.34. Price movements for the stock have been influenced by the stock’s volatility, which stands at 6.55% over the week and 6.71% over the month.
Analysts forecast that Geron Corp. (GERN) will achieve an EPS of -$0.1 for the current quarter, -$0.12 for the next quarter and -$0.36 for 2024. The lowest estimate earnings-per-share for the quarter is -$0.12 while analysts give the company a high EPS estimate of -$0.09. Comparatively, EPS for the current quarter was -$0.1 a year ago. Earnings per share for the fiscal year are expected to increase by 7.21%, and -4.37% over the next financial year. EPS should grow at an annualized rate of 5.00% over the next five years, compared to -16.28% over the past 5-year period.
If you are looking to buy this stock, then you may note that the average analyst recommendation by 6 brokerage firm advisors rate Geron Corp. (GERN) as a “Strong Buy” at a consensus score of 1.17. Specifically, 5 Wall Street analysts polled rate the stock as a buy, while 0 of the 6 advise that investors “hold,” and 0 rated it as a “Sell.”
Looking at the support for the GERN, a number of firms have released research notes about the stock. Goldman stated their Buy rating for the stock in a research note on September 12, 2023, with the firm’s price target at $4.
