Vanguard Group Inc. Buys 118,135 Shares of Qiagen N.V. $QGEN

Vanguard Group Inc. grew its position in shares of Qiagen N.V. (NYSE:QGEN) by 1.3% in the fourth quarter, according to the company in its most recent Form 13F filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission. The institutional investor owned 9,542,944 shares of the company’s stock after purchasing an additional 118,135 shares during the period. Vanguard Group Inc.’s holdings in Qiagen were worth $433,871,000 at the end of the most recent reporting period.

Several other large investors have also recently made changes to their positions in QGEN. M&T Bank Corp bought a new position in Qiagen during the fourth quarter valued at approximately $866,000. Evergreen Capital Management LLC boosted its position in shares of Qiagen by 8.1% during the 4th quarter. Evergreen Capital Management LLC now owns 9,392 shares of the company’s stock valued at $422,000 after acquiring an additional 701 shares during the last quarter. Zurcher Kantonalbank Zurich Cantonalbank boosted its position in shares of Qiagen by 15.6% during the 4th quarter. Zurcher Kantonalbank Zurich Cantonalbank now owns 108,933 shares of the company’s stock valued at $4,945,000 after acquiring an additional 14,740 shares during the last quarter. Lecap Asset Management Ltd. purchased a new position in shares of Qiagen in the fourth quarter valued at $509,000. Finally, Oak Harvest Investment Services increased its position in Qiagen by 17.7% in the fourth quarter. Oak Harvest Investment Services now owns 98,722 shares of the company’s stock worth $4,440,000 after purchasing an additional 14,845 shares during the last quarter. 70.00% of the stock is owned by institutional investors.

Qiagen Price Performance

Qiagen stock opened at $33.98 on Wednesday. Qiagen N.V. has a 12-month low of $33.17 and a 12-month high of $57.81. The company has a current ratio of 3.90, a quick ratio of 3.31 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.44. The firm has a 50-day moving average price of $41.49 and a 200-day moving average price of $46.61. The firm has a market capitalization of $7.00 billion, a PE ratio of 16.85, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 3.38 and a beta of 0.64.

Qiagen (NYSE:QGEN) last issued its quarterly earnings results on Wednesday, February 4th. The company reported $0.62 EPS for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $0.61 by $0.01. Qiagen had a net margin of 20.33% and a return on equity of 14.56%. The company had revenue of $540.42 million for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $528.53 million. During the same period in the prior year, the firm posted $0.61 EPS. The firm’s revenue was up 3.6% compared to the same quarter last year. As a group, equities research analysts forecast that Qiagen N.V. will post 2.44 EPS for the current year.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

A number of equities research analysts recently issued reports on the stock. Barclays set a $38.00 price target on shares of Qiagen and gave the company an “equal weight” rating in a research note on Wednesday, April 29th. Jefferies Financial Group restated a “buy” rating and issued a $59.00 target price on shares of Qiagen in a report on Thursday, February 5th. Weiss Ratings reaffirmed a “hold (c)” rating on shares of Qiagen in a report on Friday, March 27th. UBS Group set a $52.00 price target on Qiagen in a research report on Monday, February 9th. Finally, Wall Street Zen cut Qiagen from a “buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a research note on Saturday, March 28th. One analyst has rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, four have given a Buy rating and seven have given a Hold rating to the company. According to MarketBeat, the company has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average price target of $47.09.

Qiagen Profile

Qiagen NV (NYSE: QGEN) is a global provider of sample and assay technologies designed to enable molecular testing in the fields of molecular diagnostics, applied testing, academic research and pharmaceutical development. The company’s solutions span the full workflow of nucleic acid and protein analysis, offering customers standardized kits, instruments and software tools that streamline the preparation, detection and quantification of DNA, RNA and proteins.

The company’s product portfolio includes nucleic acid extraction and purification systems, polymerase chain reaction (PCR) reagents and instrumentation, digital PCR platforms, next-generation sequencing (NGS) library‐preparation kits and proteomics solutions.