Illumina (NASDAQ:ILMN) Raised to Buy at Wall Street Zen

Illumina (NASDAQ:ILMN) was upgraded by research analysts at Wall Street Zen from a “hold” rating to a “buy” rating in a note issued to investors on Saturday.

A number of other brokerages have also commented on ILMN. JPMorgan Chase & Co. raised their price objective on Illumina from $105.00 to $130.00 and gave the stock a “neutral” rating in a research report on Monday, December 15th. Canaccord Genuity Group increased their price target on shares of Illumina from $112.00 to $130.00 and gave the stock a “hold” rating in a research report on Monday, December 22nd. Barclays boosted their price objective on shares of Illumina from $100.00 to $110.00 and gave the company an “underweight” rating in a research report on Monday, December 15th. UBS Group increased their target price on shares of Illumina from $110.00 to $120.00 and gave the stock a “neutral” rating in a research report on Friday, October 31st. Finally, Weiss Ratings reissued a “hold (c-)” rating on shares of Illumina in a research note on Monday, December 29th. Five equities research analysts have rated the stock with a Buy rating, fourteen have assigned a Hold rating and two have given a Sell rating to the stock. According to data from MarketBeat.com, the company currently has an average rating of “Hold” and a consensus price target of $122.56.

Illumina Trading Down 2.5%

Illumina stock opened at $141.65 on Friday. Illumina has a 52 week low of $68.70 and a 52 week high of $151.34. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.42, a quick ratio of 1.12 and a current ratio of 1.43. The firm has a market capitalization of $21.64 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 31.76, a P/E/G ratio of 2.42 and a beta of 1.41. The company has a 50 day moving average price of $132.43 and a 200 day moving average price of $111.41.

Illumina (NASDAQ:ILMN) last released its earnings results on Thursday, October 30th. The life sciences company reported $1.34 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $1.16 by $0.18. Illumina had a return on equity of 29.21% and a net margin of 16.40%.The company had revenue of $1.08 billion during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $1.07 billion. During the same quarter in the prior year, the company earned $1.14 earnings per share. The company’s revenue for the quarter was up .4% on a year-over-year basis. Illumina has set its FY 2025 guidance at 4.650-4.750 EPS. Research analysts forecast that Illumina will post 4.51 EPS for the current year.

Insider Buying and Selling at Illumina

In other news, Director Scott Gottlieb bought 500 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Monday, November 3rd. The stock was acquired at an average cost of $122.13 per share, with a total value of $61,065.00. Following the completion of the purchase, the director owned 12,523 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $1,529,433.99. This represents a 4.16% increase in their ownership of the stock. The acquisition was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which can be accessed through this link. Also, insider Scott M. Davies sold 323 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction on Friday, December 12th. The stock was sold at an average price of $136.09, for a total transaction of $43,957.07. Following the transaction, the insider owned 17,887 shares in the company, valued at approximately $2,434,241.83. The trade was a 1.77% decrease in their ownership of the stock. Additional details regarding this sale are available in the official SEC disclosure. 2.60% of the stock is currently owned by company insiders.

Institutional Investors Weigh In On Illumina

Several hedge funds have recently bought and sold shares of ILMN. Capital World Investors increased its position in Illumina by 20.0% during the third quarter. Capital World Investors now owns 19,976,850 shares of the life sciences company’s stock worth $1,897,178,000 after buying an additional 3,331,542 shares during the last quarter. State Street Corp increased its holdings in shares of Illumina by 6.8% during the 3rd quarter. State Street Corp now owns 5,999,790 shares of the life sciences company’s stock worth $569,800,000 after acquiring an additional 382,520 shares during the last quarter. WCM Investment Management LLC increased its holdings in shares of Illumina by 5.9% during the 2nd quarter. WCM Investment Management LLC now owns 4,426,471 shares of the life sciences company’s stock worth $419,585,000 after acquiring an additional 247,460 shares during the last quarter. Loomis Sayles & Co. L P lifted its holdings in Illumina by 1.9% during the 2nd quarter. Loomis Sayles & Co. L P now owns 4,225,529 shares of the life sciences company’s stock valued at $403,158,000 after purchasing an additional 78,317 shares during the last quarter. Finally, AQR Capital Management LLC boosted its position in Illumina by 3.1% during the third quarter. AQR Capital Management LLC now owns 3,398,027 shares of the life sciences company’s stock worth $315,915,000 after purchasing an additional 102,147 shares during the period. 89.42% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

Illumina Company Profile

Illumina, Inc (NASDAQ: ILMN) is a global life sciences company that develops, manufactures and markets integrated systems for the analysis of genetic variation and function. Headquartered in San Diego, California and founded in 1998, Illumina offers a range of sequencing and array-based technologies used by academic researchers, clinical laboratories, pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies, consumer genomics firms and agricultural researchers to enable discovery, translational research and clinical applications.

The company’s product portfolio includes next-generation sequencing (NGS) platforms and associated consumables, microarrays for genotyping and methylation analysis, library preparation kits and targeted assays.