Investors Purchase High Volume of Geron Call Options (NASDAQ:GERN)

Geron Co. (NASDAQ:GERN) saw unusually large options trading on Wednesday. Traders purchased 11,465 call options on the stock. This represents an increase of 578% compared to the typical volume of 1,691 call options.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

Several equities analysts have recently issued reports on the company. B. Riley decreased their target price on Geron from $5.50 to $3.50 and set a “buy” rating for the company in a research report on Tuesday, February 18th. Barclays upgraded Geron to a “strong-buy” rating in a research report on Friday, November 29th. HC Wainwright lowered Geron from a “buy” rating to a “neutral” rating in a research report on Wednesday. Finally, Needham & Company LLC boosted their price objective on Geron from $6.00 to $7.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a research report on Monday, January 13th. One investment analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, two have issued a hold rating, eight have issued a buy rating and two have given a strong buy rating to the company’s stock. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, the company has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $6.91.

Hedge Funds Weigh In On Geron

A number of large investors have recently bought and sold shares of GERN. SBI Securities Co. Ltd. bought a new stake in shares of Geron during the 4th quarter worth approximately $28,000. Integrated Wealth Concepts LLC bought a new stake in shares of Geron during the 4th quarter worth approximately $36,000. GF Fund Management CO. LTD. bought a new stake in shares of Geron during the 4th quarter worth approximately $45,000. Readystate Asset Management LP bought a new stake in shares of Geron during the 3rd quarter worth approximately $58,000. Finally, Rovin Capital UT ADV bought a new stake in shares of Geron during the 3rd quarter worth approximately $62,000. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 73.71% of the company’s stock.

Geron Trading Down 32.1 %

NASDAQ:GERN opened at $1.61 on Thursday. Geron has a twelve month low of $1.46 and a twelve month high of $5.34. The company has a quick ratio of 2.74, a current ratio of 2.89 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.04. The business has a 50 day moving average price of $3.00 and a two-hundred day moving average price of $3.81. The company has a market cap of $973.25 million, a P/E ratio of -5.03 and a beta of 0.53.

Geron (NASDAQ:GERN) last released its quarterly earnings results on Wednesday, February 26th. The biopharmaceutical company reported ($0.04) earnings per share for the quarter, hitting analysts’ consensus estimates of ($0.04). Geron had a negative return on equity of 67.53% and a negative net margin of 682.48%. As a group, analysts expect that Geron will post -0.25 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Geron Company Profile

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.