Daiwa Securities Group Inc. Trims Stake in Illumina, Inc. (NASDAQ:ILMN)

Daiwa Securities Group Inc. reduced its stake in shares of Illumina, Inc. (NASDAQ:ILMN) by 50.3% in the 4th quarter, Holdings Channel reports. The fund owned 37,802 shares of the life sciences company’s stock after selling 38,256 shares during the period. Daiwa Securities Group Inc.’s holdings in Illumina were worth $5,051,000 as of its most recent filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

Other institutional investors also recently bought and sold shares of the company. Bleakley Financial Group LLC purchased a new position in Illumina during the fourth quarter valued at approximately $751,000. Zacks Investment Management purchased a new position in Illumina during the third quarter valued at approximately $2,924,000. Van ECK Associates Corp raised its position in Illumina by 17.5% during the fourth quarter. Van ECK Associates Corp now owns 152,265 shares of the life sciences company’s stock valued at $20,347,000 after acquiring an additional 22,718 shares in the last quarter. Strategic Financial Concepts LLC purchased a new position in Illumina during the fourth quarter valued at approximately $1,464,000. Finally, Allworth Financial LP raised its position in Illumina by 720.7% during the fourth quarter. Allworth Financial LP now owns 7,132 shares of the life sciences company’s stock valued at $1,001,000 after acquiring an additional 6,263 shares in the last quarter. 89.42% of the stock is currently owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

Illumina Stock Performance

NASDAQ ILMN opened at $84.20 on Thursday. The stock’s fifty day moving average is $115.46 and its two-hundred day moving average is $130.52. The firm has a market capitalization of $13.34 billion, a P/E ratio of -10.96, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 1.60 and a beta of 1.17. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.63, a quick ratio of 1.42 and a current ratio of 1.77. Illumina, Inc. has a fifty-two week low of $80.18 and a fifty-two week high of $156.66.

Illumina (NASDAQ:ILMN) last released its quarterly earnings data on Thursday, February 6th. The life sciences company reported $0.86 earnings per share for the quarter, missing analysts’ consensus estimates of $0.92 by ($0.06). Illumina had a positive return on equity of 13.37% and a negative net margin of 27.95%. On average, research analysts anticipate that Illumina, Inc. will post 4.51 earnings per share for the current year.

Analyst Ratings Changes

A number of research firms have recently commented on ILMN. Canaccord Genuity Group cut their price objective on Illumina from $135.00 to $115.00 and set a “hold” rating for the company in a research report on Tuesday. Guggenheim cut their price objective on Illumina from $170.00 to $150.00 and set a “buy” rating for the company in a research report on Friday, February 7th. HSBC cut Illumina from a “buy” rating to a “hold” rating and set a $100.00 price objective for the company. in a research report on Friday, February 28th. TD Cowen cut Illumina from a “buy” rating to a “hold” rating and cut their price objective for the company from $177.00 to $140.00 in a research report on Friday, February 7th. Finally, Hsbc Global Res cut Illumina from a “strong-buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a research report on Friday, February 28th. One investment analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, ten have given a hold rating, ten have given a buy rating and one has given a strong buy rating to the stock. Based on data from MarketBeat, Illumina has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average price target of $140.90.

About Illumina

Illumina, Inc offers sequencing- and array-based solutions for genetic and genomic analysis in the United States, Singapore, the United Kingdom, and internationally. It operates through Core Illumina and GRAIL segments. The company offers sequencing and array-based instruments and consumables, which include reagents, flow cells, and library preparation; whole-genome sequencing kits, which sequence entire genomes of various size and complexity; and targeted resequencing kits, which sequence exomes, specific genes, and RNA or other genomic regions of interest.