Eventide Asset Management LLC Acquires 715,818 Shares of Geron Co. (NASDAQ:GERN)

Eventide Asset Management LLC grew its stake in shares of Geron Co. (NASDAQ:GERN - Free Report) by 11.3% during the third quarter, according to the company in its most recent disclosure with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). The institutional investor owned 7,072,000 shares of the biopharmaceutical company's stock after purchasing an additional 715,818 shares during the quarter. Eventide Asset Management LLC owned 1.17% of Geron worth $32,107,000 at the end of the most recent quarter.

Other institutional investors and hedge funds also recently modified their holdings of the company. Darwin Global Management Ltd. acquired a new position in Geron during the 2nd quarter worth approximately $106,185,000. Farallon Capital Management LLC lifted its position in shares of Geron by 124.6% during the second quarter. Farallon Capital Management LLC now owns 16,837,000 shares of the biopharmaceutical company's stock worth $71,389,000 after purchasing an additional 9,342,000 shares in the last quarter. First Turn Management LLC acquired a new position in shares of Geron during the third quarter worth $14,187,000. Price T Rowe Associates Inc. MD boosted its stake in shares of Geron by 999.7% in the first quarter. Price T Rowe Associates Inc. MD now owns 2,064,963 shares of the biopharmaceutical company's stock valued at $6,815,000 after purchasing an additional 1,877,184 shares during the period. Finally, Walleye Capital LLC acquired a new stake in Geron during the 3rd quarter valued at $7,521,000. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 73.71% of the company's stock.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

GERN has been the topic of a number of analyst reports. Needham & Company LLC reaffirmed a "buy" rating and set a $6.00 target price on shares of Geron in a research report on Friday, August 9th. Leerink Partners began coverage on Geron in a research report on Monday, September 9th. They issued an "outperform" rating and a $7.00 target price on the stock. StockNews.com raised shares of Geron to a "sell" rating in a research report on Monday, August 5th. Leerink Partnrs raised shares of Geron to a "strong-buy" rating in a report on Monday, September 9th. Finally, Scotiabank assumed coverage on shares of Geron in a report on Wednesday, October 16th. They set a "sector outperform" rating and a $6.00 price objective for the company. One equities research analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, one has issued a hold rating, nine have given a buy rating and one has given a strong buy rating to the stock. Based on data from MarketBeat, the stock has a consensus rating of "Moderate Buy" and an average price target of $7.05.

Geron Stock Performance

Shares of Geron stock traded down $0.05 during trading hours on Friday, reaching $4.12. The company's stock had a trading volume of 3,512,728 shares, compared to its average volume of 10,347,535. The company's 50 day simple moving average is $4.16 and its 200 day simple moving average is $4.32. The stock has a market cap of $2.49 billion, a P/E ratio of -12.88 and a beta of 0.52. Geron Co. has a one year low of $1.64 and a one year high of $5.34. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.04, a quick ratio of 2.74 and a current ratio of 2.89.

Geron (NASDAQ:GERN - Get Free Report) last announced its quarterly earnings data on Thursday, November 7th. The biopharmaceutical company reported ($0.04) earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of ($0.09) by $0.05. Geron had a negative return on equity of 67.53% and a negative net margin of 682.48%. The business had revenue of $28.27 million during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $18.97 million. During the same period last year, the company earned ($0.08) earnings per share. Geron's quarterly revenue was up 17138.4% compared to the same quarter last year. As a group, analysts expect that Geron Co. will post -0.25 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Geron 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.