Cerus (NASDAQ:CERS) Stock Rating Lowered by Wall Street Zen

Cerus (NASDAQ:CERS) was downgraded by analysts at Wall Street Zen from a “buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a research note issued to investors on Saturday, Wall Street Zen reports.

Other research analysts have also recently issued research reports about the stock. Freedom Broker started coverage on shares of Cerus in a report on Thursday, August 20th. They issued a “buy” rating and a $6.50 target price for the company. Weiss Ratings restated a “sell (d-)” rating on shares of Cerus in a research note on Monday, September 14th. Three investment analysts have rated the stock with a Buy rating, one has assigned a Hold rating and one has assigned a Sell rating to the stock. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, the stock presently has a consensus rating of “Hold” and a consensus price target of $5.25.

Cerus Price Performance

Cerus stock opened at $2.33 on Friday. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.49, a quick ratio of 1.07 and a current ratio of 1.83. Cerus has a 52 week low of $1.38 and a 52 week high of $3.47. The stock has a market capitalization of $469.54 million, a P/E ratio of -77.67 and a beta of 1.83. The stock has a fifty day moving average of $2.51 and a 200-day moving average of $2.57.

Cerus (NASDAQ:CERS) last announced its quarterly earnings data on Thursday, July 30th. The biotechnology company reported ($0.01) earnings per share for the quarter, hitting the consensus estimate of ($0.01). The business had revenue of $63.30 million during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $62.90 million. Cerus had a negative return on equity of 10.19% and a negative net margin of 3.06%. On average, sell-side analysts expect that Cerus will post -0.04 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Insider Buying and Selling

In other Cerus news, insider Chrystal Jensen sold 30,000 shares of the stock in a transaction dated Monday, August 17th. The stock was sold at an average price of $2.98, for a total value of $89,400.00. Following the completion of the transaction, the insider directly owned 936,657 shares in the company, valued at approximately $2,791,237.86. This trade represents a 3.10% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which can be accessed through this link. Corporate insiders own 5.30% of the company’s stock.

Institutional Trading of Cerus

Several hedge funds and other institutional investors have recently made changes to their positions in CERS. BlackRock Inc. bought a new position in shares of Cerus during the second quarter valued at $64,868,000. Ieq Capital LLC bought a new stake in shares of Cerus in the second quarter worth $7,026,000. Algert Global LLC grew its stake in shares of Cerus by 1,154.3% in the second quarter. Algert Global LLC now owns 1,491,119 shares of the biotechnology company’s stock worth $4,354,000 after purchasing an additional 1,372,243 shares during the last quarter. Bank of America Corp DE bought a new stake in shares of Cerus in the second quarter worth $2,536,000. Finally, Primecap Management Co. CA bought a new stake in shares of Cerus in the second quarter worth $2,283,000. 78.37% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors.

Cerus Company Profile

Cerus Corporation is a biomedical products company focused on improving the safety of blood transfusions. Headquartered in Concord, California, the company develops and commercializes technologies designed to reduce the risk of transfusion-transmitted infections and other threats to the blood supply.

Its principal product platform is the INTERCEPT Blood System, which uses pathogen-reduction technology to treat donated blood components. The system is available for platelets and plasma in multiple markets and is designed to inactivate a broad range of viruses, bacteria, parasites and other pathogens.