Illumina (NASDAQ:ILMN) Shares Gap Down After Analyst Downgrade

Illumina, Inc. (NASDAQ:ILMN) shares gapped down before the market opened on Monday after Barclays downgraded the stock from an equal weight rating to an underweight rating. The stock had previously closed at $111.06, but opened at $105.69. Barclays now has a $100.00 price target on the stock, down from their previous price target of $130.00. Illumina shares last traded at $103.52, with a volume of 1,108,817 shares changing hands.

A number of other research firms also recently weighed in on ILMN. Royal Bank of Canada decreased their price target on shares of Illumina from $250.00 to $247.00 and set an “outperform” rating for the company in a research report on Friday. Stephens lifted their price objective on shares of Illumina from $170.00 to $184.00 and gave the stock an “overweight” rating in a report on Tuesday, November 12th. Morgan Stanley decreased their price objective on shares of Illumina from $156.00 to $150.00 and set an “equal weight” rating for the company in a report on Monday, January 13th. JPMorgan Chase & Co. lifted their price objective on shares of Illumina from $125.00 to $140.00 and gave the stock a “neutral” rating in a report on Tuesday, November 5th. Finally, Guggenheim decreased their price objective on shares of Illumina from $170.00 to $150.00 and set a “buy” rating for the company in a report on Friday. One equities research analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, eight have issued a hold rating, eleven have assigned a buy rating and two have assigned a strong buy rating to the company’s stock. According to MarketBeat.com, the company presently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $160.15.

Hedge Funds Weigh In On Illumina

A number of institutional investors have recently bought and sold shares of ILMN. WCM Investment Management LLC grew its stake in shares of Illumina by 26.6% in the 4th quarter. WCM Investment Management LLC now owns 4,129,855 shares of the life sciences company’s stock valued at $551,625,000 after buying an additional 867,673 shares in the last quarter. ARK Investment Management LLC bought a new stake in shares of Illumina in the 4th quarter valued at approximately $91,714,000. Massachusetts Financial Services Co. MA grew its stake in shares of Illumina by 148.6% in the 3rd quarter. Massachusetts Financial Services Co. MA now owns 1,056,172 shares of the life sciences company’s stock valued at $137,735,000 after buying an additional 631,294 shares in the last quarter. Janus Henderson Group PLC grew its stake in shares of Illumina by 40.5% in the 3rd quarter. Janus Henderson Group PLC now owns 2,168,057 shares of the life sciences company’s stock valued at $282,735,000 after buying an additional 625,245 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Sumitomo Mitsui Trust Group Inc. grew its stake in shares of Illumina by 116.9% in the 4th quarter. Sumitomo Mitsui Trust Group Inc. now owns 865,546 shares of the life sciences company’s stock valued at $115,663,000 after buying an additional 466,519 shares in the last quarter. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 89.42% of the company’s stock.

Illumina Trading Down 7.7 %

The firm has a market cap of $16.26 billion, a P/E ratio of -13.29 and a beta of 1.10. The company has a 50 day moving average of $136.70 and a 200 day moving average of $135.56. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.94, a quick ratio of 1.85 and a current ratio of 2.43.

Illumina (NASDAQ:ILMN) last announced its quarterly earnings results on Thursday, February 6th. The life sciences company reported $0.86 EPS for the quarter, missing the consensus estimate of $0.92 by ($0.06). Illumina had a negative net margin of 27.95% and a positive return on equity of 12.59%. Analysts predict that Illumina, Inc. will post 4.42 EPS for the current fiscal year.

About Illumina

Illumina, Inc offers sequencing- and array-based solutions for genetic and genomic analysis in the United States, Singapore, the United Kingdom, and internationally. It operates through Core Illumina and GRAIL segments. The company offers sequencing and array-based instruments and consumables, which include reagents, flow cells, and library preparation; whole-genome sequencing kits, which sequence entire genomes of various size and complexity; and targeted resequencing kits, which sequence exomes, specific genes, and RNA or other genomic regions of interest.