Artisan Partners Limited Partnership Reduces Stock Position in Illumina, Inc. (NASDAQ:ILMN)

Artisan Partners Limited Partnership decreased its stake in shares of Illumina, Inc. (NASDAQ:ILMN) by 2.2% during the fourth quarter, according to the company in its most recent disclosure with the SEC. The institutional investor owned 1,053,709 shares of the life sciences company’s stock after selling 23,466 shares during the quarter. Artisan Partners Limited Partnership owned about 0.66% of Illumina worth $140,807,000 at the end of the most recent reporting period.

A number of other institutional investors have also recently added to or reduced their stakes in the stock. Golden State Wealth Management LLC purchased a new stake in shares of Illumina in the fourth quarter valued at about $32,000. Versant Capital Management Inc boosted its stake in Illumina by 153.7% during the fourth quarter. Versant Capital Management Inc now owns 241 shares of the life sciences company’s stock worth $32,000 after buying an additional 146 shares during the period. Bank Julius Baer & Co. Ltd Zurich acquired a new stake in shares of Illumina during the fourth quarter valued at about $45,000. Assetmark Inc. boosted its position in shares of Illumina by 954.8% during the 4th quarter. Assetmark Inc. now owns 327 shares of the life sciences company’s stock worth $44,000 after purchasing an additional 296 shares during the period. Finally, Lee Danner & Bass Inc. acquired a new stake in Illumina in the 4th quarter valued at approximately $48,000. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 89.42% of the company’s stock.

Wall Street Analyst Weigh In

A number of research firms have commented on ILMN. Robert W. Baird decreased their price target on Illumina from $127.00 to $90.00 and set a “neutral” rating on the stock in a research note on Wednesday, March 5th. Hsbc Global Res downgraded shares of Illumina from a “strong-buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a research note on Friday, February 28th. Piper Sandler raised their price target on shares of Illumina from $185.00 to $190.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a research report on Monday, February 10th. Canaccord Genuity Group decreased their target price on Illumina from $135.00 to $115.00 and set a “hold” rating for the company in a report on Tuesday, March 11th. Finally, HSBC downgraded Illumina from a “buy” rating to a “hold” rating and set a $100.00 price target on the stock. in a report on Friday, February 28th. One investment analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, ten have given a hold rating, ten have given a buy rating and one has assigned a strong buy rating to the company. Based on data from MarketBeat, the stock has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average price target of $140.90.

Illumina Stock Performance

Shares of Illumina stock opened at $82.83 on Thursday. The stock has a market capitalization of $13.12 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of -10.79, a PEG ratio of 1.60 and a beta of 1.17. The firm’s fifty day simple moving average is $105.03 and its 200-day simple moving average is $127.40. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.63, a current ratio of 1.77 and a quick ratio of 1.42. Illumina, Inc. has a 12 month low of $80.18 and a 12 month high of $156.66.

Illumina (NASDAQ:ILMN) last announced its earnings results on Thursday, February 6th. The life sciences company reported $0.86 EPS for the quarter, missing analysts’ consensus estimates of $0.92 by ($0.06). Illumina had a negative net margin of 27.95% and a positive return on equity of 13.37%. As a group, equities analysts forecast that Illumina, Inc. will post 4.51 earnings per share for the current 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.