Hennion & Walsh Asset Management Inc. Increases Position in Geron Corporation $GERN

Hennion & Walsh Asset Management Inc. lifted its stake in Geron Corporation (NASDAQ:GERN) by 152.4% in the 2nd quarter, HoldingsChannel reports. The fund owned 1,000,910 shares of the biopharmaceutical company’s stock after purchasing an additional 604,278 shares during the quarter. Hennion & Walsh Asset Management Inc.’s holdings in Geron were worth $1,281,000 as of its most recent SEC filing.

A number of other hedge funds have also recently made changes to their positions in the stock. Foresight Capital Management Advisors Inc. bought a new stake in Geron during the second quarter valued at about $80,000. Bank of America Corp DE raised its holdings in Geron by 68.9% in the first quarter. Bank of America Corp DE now owns 4,556,278 shares of the biopharmaceutical company’s stock worth $6,789,000 after purchasing an additional 1,858,268 shares in the last quarter. Janus Henderson Group PLC lifted its position in shares of Geron by 826.7% during the first quarter. Janus Henderson Group PLC now owns 2,218,196 shares of the biopharmaceutical company’s stock valued at $3,304,000 after buying an additional 1,978,839 shares during the last quarter. Amundi lifted its position in shares of Geron by 365.7% during the first quarter. Amundi now owns 132,367 shares of the biopharmaceutical company’s stock valued at $197,000 after buying an additional 103,944 shares during the last quarter. Finally, California State Teachers Retirement System boosted its holdings in shares of Geron by 55.1% in the 1st quarter. California State Teachers Retirement System now owns 737,143 shares of the biopharmaceutical company’s stock valued at $1,098,000 after buying an additional 261,886 shares in the last quarter. 73.71% of the stock is currently owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

Separately, Weiss Ratings raised shares of Geron from a “sell (e+)” rating to a “sell (d-)” rating in a research report on Tuesday. Two equities research analysts have rated the stock with a Buy rating, two have issued a Hold rating and one has issued a Sell rating to the company’s stock. Based on data from MarketBeat, the company currently has an average rating of “Hold” and a consensus price target of $4.00.

Geron Stock Down 3.7%

Geron stock opened at $1.57 on Thursday. Geron Corporation has a 1-year low of $1.04 and a 1-year high of $2.01. The business has a fifty day moving average price of $1.36 and a 200-day moving average price of $1.47. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.55, a current ratio of 6.91 and a quick ratio of 5.16. The stock has a market capitalization of $1.01 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of -14.27 and a beta of 0.61.

Geron (NASDAQ:GERN) last released its quarterly earnings results on Wednesday, August 5th. The biopharmaceutical company reported ($0.02) EPS for the quarter, missing analysts’ consensus estimates of ($0.01) by ($0.01). The business had revenue of $57.48 million during the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $55.30 million. Geron had a negative net margin of 34.17% and a negative return on equity of 24.48%. Equities research analysts forecast that Geron Corporation will post -0.04 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Geron Profile

Geron Corporation (NASDAQ: GERN) is a clinical-stage biotechnology company dedicated to developing and commercializing novel treatments that target telomerase, an enzyme critical to cancer cell immortality. The company’s research is focused on hematologic malignancies and solid tumors, with a pipeline designed to address diseases that have historically had limited therapeutic options.

The lead product candidate, imetelstat, is a first-in-class telomerase inhibitor currently in Phase II and Phase III clinical trials for myelofibrosis and myelodysplastic syndromes.