Geron Co. (NASDAQ:GERN) Short Interest Down 16.3% in February

Geron Co. (NASDAQ:GERN) saw a large drop in short interest in February. As of February 28th, there was short interest totalling 58,410,000 shares, a drop of 16.3% from the February 13th total of 69,770,000 shares. Based on an average daily trading volume, of 14,140,000 shares, the short-interest ratio is presently 4.1 days. Approximately 10.0% of the shares of the stock are short sold.

Institutional Inflows and Outflows

Hedge funds have recently added to or reduced their stakes in the stock. Los Angeles Capital Management LLC purchased a new position in shares of Geron during the third quarter valued at about $178,000. Empowered Funds LLC purchased a new position in shares of Geron during the 3rd quarter worth approximately $67,000. First Turn Management LLC bought a new position in shares of Geron in the 3rd quarter worth approximately $14,187,000. Intech Investment Management LLC purchased a new position in shares of Geron in the 3rd quarter valued at approximately $1,102,000. Finally, Charles Schwab Investment Management Inc. boosted its position in shares of Geron by 2.6% during the third quarter. Charles Schwab Investment Management Inc. now owns 4,450,382 shares of the biopharmaceutical company’s stock valued at $20,205,000 after purchasing an additional 111,361 shares in the last quarter. 73.71% of the stock is owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

Several analysts have issued reports on GERN shares. B. Riley lowered Geron from a “buy” rating to a “neutral” rating and cut their target price for the stock from $3.50 to $2.00 in a research note on Thursday, February 27th. Barclays reaffirmed an “overweight” rating and set a $4.00 target price (down previously from $9.00) on shares of Geron in a report on Thursday, February 27th. Scotiabank lowered their price target on shares of Geron from $6.00 to $4.00 and set a “sector outperform” rating for the company in a research note on Thursday, February 27th. Stifel Nicolaus cut their price target on shares of Geron from $8.00 to $4.00 and set a “buy” rating for the company in a research report on Thursday, February 27th. Finally, Needham & Company LLC reiterated a “buy” rating and issued a $5.00 price objective on shares of Geron in a report on Wednesday, March 12th. One research analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, three have given a hold rating, seven have issued a buy rating and one has given a strong buy rating to the company’s stock. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, Geron presently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average price target of $5.75.

Geron Trading Up 0.3 %

NASDAQ:GERN traded up $0.01 during mid-day trading on Tuesday, reaching $1.75. 3,526,122 shares of the company’s stock traded hands, compared to its average volume of 10,941,900. The company has a 50 day moving average price of $2.55 and a 200-day moving average price of $3.54. The firm has a market capitalization of $1.11 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of -5.45 and a beta of 0.53. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.04, a current ratio of 2.89 and a quick ratio of 2.74. Geron has a 12-month low of $1.46 and a 12-month high of $5.34.

Geron (NASDAQ:GERN) last posted its earnings results on Wednesday, February 26th. The biopharmaceutical company reported ($0.04) earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, meeting the consensus estimate of ($0.04). Geron had a negative return on equity of 67.53% and a negative net margin of 682.48%. The firm had revenue of $47.54 million for the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $45.29 million. On average, sell-side analysts predict that Geron will post -0.25 earnings per share for the current 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.