QuidelOrtho (NASDAQ:QDEL) Shares Gap Up to $40.36

QuidelOrtho Co. (NASDAQ:QDEL) gapped up prior to trading on Thursday . The stock had previously closed at $40.36, but opened at $41.94. QuidelOrtho shares last traded at $42.10, with a volume of 44,668 shares changing hands.

Wall Street Analyst Weigh In

Several equities analysts have recently weighed in on the stock. Craig Hallum upgraded shares of QuidelOrtho from a “hold” rating to a “buy” rating and raised their price objective for the company from $40.00 to $57.00 in a research report on Thursday. Royal Bank of Canada restated an “outperform” rating and set a $61.00 target price on shares of QuidelOrtho in a report on Friday, August 16th. Two analysts have rated the stock with a sell rating, three have issued a hold rating and three have assigned a buy rating to the stock. According to data from MarketBeat, QuidelOrtho presently has an average rating of “Hold” and an average price target of $57.50.

QuidelOrtho Stock Down 2.4 %

The business’s 50 day simple moving average is $38.58 and its 200 day simple moving average is $41.30. The company has a market capitalization of $2.92 billion, a PE ratio of -1.65 and a beta of 0.08. The company has a quick ratio of 0.79, a current ratio of 1.44 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.70.

QuidelOrtho (NASDAQ:QDEL) last issued its quarterly earnings results on Wednesday, July 31st. The company reported ($0.07) EPS for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of ($0.22) by $0.15. QuidelOrtho had a negative net margin of 65.60% and a positive return on equity of 3.87%. The business had revenue of $637.00 million during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $613.51 million. During the same quarter in the prior year, the firm earned $0.26 EPS. The firm’s quarterly revenue was down 4.2% on a year-over-year basis. As a group, analysts forecast that QuidelOrtho Co. will post 1.77 EPS for the current year.

Insider Transactions at QuidelOrtho

In related news, major shareholder Carlyle Group Inc. sold 64,263 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction on Wednesday, June 12th. The stock was sold at an average price of $40.23, for a total transaction of $2,585,300.49. Following the transaction, the insider now directly owns 12,395,920 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $498,687,861.60. The transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which can be accessed through this link. Insiders sold a total of 2,261,559 shares of company stock valued at $82,700,460 over the last quarter. Company insiders own 1.00% of the company’s stock.

Institutional Inflows and Outflows

Institutional investors and hedge funds have recently added to or reduced their stakes in the stock. Rubric Capital Management LP lifted its position in QuidelOrtho by 51.9% in the 2nd quarter. Rubric Capital Management LP now owns 3,645,590 shares of the company’s stock worth $121,106,000 after buying an additional 1,245,590 shares in the last quarter. Norges Bank acquired a new stake in QuidelOrtho during the fourth quarter valued at $41,968,000. Dimensional Fund Advisors LP boosted its position in QuidelOrtho by 144.2% during the fourth quarter. Dimensional Fund Advisors LP now owns 908,554 shares of the company’s stock valued at $66,961,000 after purchasing an additional 536,492 shares during the last quarter. Invenomic Capital Management LP purchased a new position in QuidelOrtho in the fourth quarter valued at about $37,144,000. Finally, Maverick Capital Ltd. increased its position in QuidelOrtho by 27.5% in the 2nd quarter. Maverick Capital Ltd. now owns 1,728,913 shares of the company’s stock worth $57,434,000 after purchasing an additional 372,662 shares during the last quarter. 99.00% of the stock is owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

About QuidelOrtho

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.