Geron Sees Unusually High Options Volume (NASDAQ:GERN)

Geron Co. (NASDAQ:GERN) was the target of some unusual options trading activity on Monday. Stock traders acquired 4,116 call options on the company. This represents an increase of approximately 139% compared to the average volume of 1,724 call options.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

GERN has been the topic of several analyst reports. Leerink Partners began coverage on shares of Geron in a research report on Monday, September 9th. They set an “outperform” rating and a $7.00 target price on the stock. StockNews.com raised Geron to a “sell” rating in a research note on Monday, August 5th. Needham & Company LLC reiterated a “buy” rating and set a $6.00 price target on shares of Geron in a report on Friday, August 9th. Leerink Partnrs upgraded shares of Geron to a “strong-buy” rating in a research note on Monday, September 9th. Finally, Wedbush reiterated an “outperform” rating and issued a $8.00 target price on shares of Geron in a research note on Thursday, August 8th. One equities research analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, one has given a hold rating, nine have assigned a buy rating and one has assigned a strong buy rating to the stock. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, the stock presently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $7.05.

Geron Stock Performance

Geron stock traded down $0.05 during mid-day trading on Monday, reaching $4.12. The company had a trading volume of 3,512,728 shares, compared to its average volume of 10,347,535. The company has a 50 day moving average of $4.16 and a 200-day moving average of $4.33. Geron has a 52 week low of $1.64 and a 52 week 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 firm has a market cap of $2.49 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of -12.88 and a beta of 0.52.

Geron (NASDAQ:GERN) last released its earnings results on Thursday, November 7th. The biopharmaceutical company reported ($0.04) earnings per share for the quarter, topping analysts’ consensus estimates of ($0.09) by $0.05. The business had revenue of $28.27 million for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $18.97 million. Geron had a negative return on equity of 67.53% and a negative net margin of 682.48%. The firm’s revenue for the quarter was up 17138.4% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same period last year, the business earned ($0.08) earnings per share. On average, sell-side analysts expect that Geron will post -0.25 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Institutional Trading of Geron

A number of hedge funds and other institutional investors have recently modified their holdings of GERN. RTW Investments LP bought a new position in Geron in the third quarter valued at about $200,268,000. Vanguard Group Inc. boosted its stake in Geron by 4.6% in the first quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 29,869,287 shares of the biopharmaceutical company’s stock valued at $98,569,000 after acquiring an additional 1,304,713 shares during the last quarter. State Street Corp lifted its stake in shares of Geron by 28.4% in the 3rd quarter. State Street Corp now owns 28,961,671 shares of the biopharmaceutical company’s stock valued at $131,486,000 after purchasing an additional 6,413,204 shares during the period. Darwin Global Management Ltd. acquired a new stake in shares of Geron during the second quarter worth $106,185,000. Finally, Janus Henderson Group PLC increased its holdings in Geron by 140.0% in the third quarter. Janus Henderson Group PLC now owns 22,565,846 shares of the biopharmaceutical company’s stock valued at $102,193,000 after purchasing an additional 13,163,889 shares during the last quarter. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 73.71% of the company’s stock.

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.