Brokerages Set QuidelOrtho Co. (NASDAQ:QDEL) PT at $57.60

Shares of QuidelOrtho Co. (NASDAQ:QDEL) have been assigned a consensus recommendation of “Hold” from the seven research firms that are covering the company, Marketbeat.com reports. Two analysts have rated the stock with a sell recommendation, three have given a hold recommendation and two have given a buy recommendation to the company. The average 1 year target price among brokers that have updated their coverage on the stock in the last year is $57.60.

Separately, Royal Bank of Canada reaffirmed an “outperform” rating and issued a $61.00 price objective on shares of QuidelOrtho in a research note on Thursday, August 1st.

QuidelOrtho Stock Up 0.5 %

QDEL stock traded up $0.22 during mid-day trading on Friday, hitting $41.62. The stock had a trading volume of 931,348 shares, compared to its average volume of 1,828,713. QuidelOrtho has a 1-year low of $29.74 and a 1-year high of $84.60. The company has a fifty day moving average of $36.61 and a 200 day moving average of $44.38. The company has a current ratio of 1.44, a quick ratio of 0.79 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.70. The stock has a market capitalization of $2.79 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of -1.58 and a beta of 0.07.

QuidelOrtho (NASDAQ:QDEL) last released its quarterly earnings data on Wednesday, July 31st. The company reported ($0.07) EPS for the quarter, topping analysts’ consensus estimates of ($0.22) by $0.15. The firm had revenue of $637.00 million for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $613.51 million. QuidelOrtho had a positive return on equity of 3.87% and a negative net margin of 65.60%. The firm’s revenue was down 4.2% on a year-over-year basis. During the same quarter in the prior year, the company posted $0.26 earnings per share. On average, equities analysts expect that QuidelOrtho will post 1.78 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Insider Buying and Selling

In other news, major shareholder Carlyle Group Inc. sold 214,732 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction dated Wednesday, July 24th. The stock was sold at an average price of $38.97, for a total value of $8,368,106.04. Following the sale, the insider now directly owns 10,113,040 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $394,105,168.80. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which is available at the SEC website. In the last three months, insiders sold 2,261,559 shares of company stock valued at $82,700,460. Company insiders own 1.00% of the company’s stock.

Hedge Funds Weigh In On QuidelOrtho

A number of institutional investors and hedge funds have recently bought and sold shares of the stock. Susquehanna Fundamental Investments LLC acquired a new position in QuidelOrtho in the 1st quarter valued at approximately $1,178,000. Dimensional Fund Advisors LP lifted its position in QuidelOrtho by 144.2% in the fourth quarter. Dimensional Fund Advisors LP now owns 908,554 shares of the company’s stock worth $66,961,000 after purchasing an additional 536,492 shares during the period. Private Management Group Inc. boosted its stake in QuidelOrtho by 117.7% during the fourth quarter. Private Management Group Inc. now owns 197,344 shares of the company’s stock worth $14,544,000 after buying an additional 106,709 shares in the last quarter. Norges Bank bought a new stake in QuidelOrtho in the 4th quarter valued at $41,968,000. Finally, Raymond James Financial Services Advisors Inc. raised its stake in shares of QuidelOrtho by 11.9% in the 4th quarter. Raymond James Financial Services Advisors Inc. now owns 25,559 shares of the company’s stock valued at $1,884,000 after buying an additional 2,727 shares in the last quarter. Institutional investors own 99.00% of the company’s stock.

QuidelOrtho Company Profile

QuidelOrtho Corporation provides diagnostic testing solutions. The company operates through Labs, Transfusion Medicine, Point-of-Care, and Molecular Diagnostics business units. The Labs business unit provides clinical chemistry laboratory instruments and tests that measure target chemicals in bodily fluids for the evaluation of health and the clinical management of patients; immunoassay laboratory instruments and tests, which measure proteins as they act as antigens in the spread of disease, antibodies in the immune response spurred by disease, or markers of proper organ function and health; testing products to detect and monitor disease progression across a spectrum of therapeutic areas; and specialized diagnostic solutions.