Teachers Retirement System of The State of Kentucky Trims Stock Position in Guardant Health, Inc. $GH

Teachers Retirement System of The State of Kentucky lessened its holdings in Guardant Health, Inc. (NASDAQ:GH) by 9.0% during the 4th quarter, Holdings Channel.com reports. The firm owned 137,471 shares of the company’s stock after selling 13,646 shares during the period. Teachers Retirement System of The State of Kentucky’s holdings in Guardant Health were worth $14,041,000 as of its most recent filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission.

A number of other institutional investors and hedge funds also recently made changes to their positions in the business. V Square Quantitative Management LLC bought a new stake in Guardant Health during the fourth quarter valued at approximately $27,000. Chesapeake Asset Management LLC bought a new position in Guardant Health in the fourth quarter worth approximately $28,000. Thurston Springer Miller Herd & Titak Inc. bought a new position in Guardant Health in the fourth quarter worth approximately $31,000. First Pacific Financial purchased a new position in shares of Guardant Health during the 4th quarter worth $43,000. Finally, Optiver Holding B.V. boosted its stake in shares of Guardant Health by 153.5% during the 3rd quarter. Optiver Holding B.V. now owns 768 shares of the company’s stock worth $48,000 after acquiring an additional 465 shares during the last quarter. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 92.60% of the company’s stock.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

GH has been the subject of several analyst reports. Raymond James Financial restated an “outperform” rating and issued a $129.00 price objective on shares of Guardant Health in a research note on Monday, February 23rd. Stifel Nicolaus lifted their target price on Guardant Health from $120.00 to $130.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a research report on Friday, February 20th. Guggenheim boosted their price target on Guardant Health from $115.00 to $135.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a report on Monday, January 26th. Piper Sandler upped their price target on Guardant Health from $120.00 to $130.00 and gave the stock an “overweight” rating in a research report on Tuesday, February 24th. Finally, Citigroup raised their price objective on Guardant Health from $135.00 to $150.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a research note on Friday, February 20th. Twenty research analysts have rated the stock with a Buy rating, one has given a Hold rating and one has issued a Sell rating to the company’s stock. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, the stock currently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus target price of $125.20.

Guardant Health Price Performance

Shares of NASDAQ GH opened at $88.91 on Monday. The stock has a market cap of $11.66 billion, a PE ratio of -26.86 and a beta of 1.64. Guardant Health, Inc. has a 1 year low of $36.36 and a 1 year high of $120.74. The firm has a fifty day moving average price of $90.98 and a 200-day moving average price of $95.76.

Guardant Health (NASDAQ:GH) last released its earnings results on Thursday, February 19th. The company reported ($0.50) earnings per share for the quarter, missing analysts’ consensus estimates of ($0.43) by ($0.07). The company had revenue of $281.27 million for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $269.74 million. The business’s quarterly revenue was up 39.4% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same quarter last year, the business posted ($0.62) EPS. On average, research analysts expect that Guardant Health, Inc. will post -2.87 EPS for the current year.

Insiders Place Their Bets

In other news, Director Musa Tariq sold 348 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction dated Wednesday, March 18th. The stock was sold at an average price of $88.09, for a total value of $30,655.32. Following the transaction, the director directly owned 8,394 shares in the company, valued at $739,427.46. The trade was a 3.98% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available at this hyperlink. Also, Director Medina Manuel Hidalgo sold 1,300 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction dated Friday, March 6th. The stock was sold at an average price of $91.54, for a total value of $119,002.00. Following the completion of the transaction, the director directly owned 1,193 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $109,207.22. This trade represents a 52.15% decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale is available in the SEC filing. Insiders have sold 8,596 shares of company stock valued at $775,767 over the last three months. Insiders own 6.10% of the company’s stock.

About Guardant Health

Guardant Health, Inc is a precision oncology company specializing in blood-based cancer diagnostics. Founded in 2012 and headquartered in Redwood City, California, the company develops non-invasive tests that use circulating tumor DNA (ctDNA) to profile genomic alterations in patients with solid tumors. Guardant Health’s mission is to advance cancer care by providing actionable data to clinicians, pharmaceutical partners and researchers worldwide.

The company’s flagship product, Guardant360, is a next-generation sequencing (NGS) assay designed to detect mutations, copy number variations and select fusions in more than 70 cancer-related genes.