Guardian Partners Inc. Takes $2.54 Million Position in Illumina, Inc. (NASDAQ:ILMN)

Guardian Partners Inc. bought a new stake in Illumina, Inc. (NASDAQ:ILMN) during the fourth quarter, according to the company in its most recent 13F filing with the SEC. The institutional investor bought 18,161 shares of the life sciences company’s stock, valued at approximately $2,537,000.

A number of other institutional investors have also modified their holdings of ILMN. Empowered Funds LLC raised its stake in shares of Illumina by 1.7% in the 3rd quarter. Empowered Funds LLC now owns 3,960 shares of the life sciences company’s stock valued at $516,000 after purchasing an additional 66 shares in the last quarter. Thrivent Financial for Lutherans raised its stake in shares of Illumina by 2.4% in the 3rd quarter. Thrivent Financial for Lutherans now owns 61,749 shares of the life sciences company’s stock valued at $8,052,000 after purchasing an additional 1,451 shares in the last quarter. Caprock Group LLC raised its stake in shares of Illumina by 3.0% in the 3rd quarter. Caprock Group LLC now owns 2,884 shares of the life sciences company’s stock valued at $376,000 after purchasing an additional 83 shares in the last quarter. B. Metzler seel. Sohn & Co. Holding AG acquired a new stake in shares of Illumina in the 3rd quarter valued at about $710,000. Finally, Commerce Bank raised its stake in shares of Illumina by 3.5% in the 3rd quarter. Commerce Bank now owns 6,376 shares of the life sciences company’s stock valued at $831,000 after purchasing an additional 217 shares in the last quarter. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 89.42% of the company’s stock.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

ILMN has been the topic of a number of recent analyst reports. TD Cowen lowered shares of Illumina from a “buy” rating to a “hold” rating and cut their target price for the company from $177.00 to $140.00 in a research note on Friday, February 7th. Morgan Stanley lowered their price objective on shares of Illumina from $150.00 to $136.00 and set an “equal weight” rating for the company in a research report on Tuesday, February 11th. HSBC downgraded shares of Illumina from a “buy” rating to a “hold” rating and set a $100.00 price objective for the company. in a research report on Friday, February 28th. Canaccord Genuity Group lowered their price objective on shares of Illumina from $135.00 to $115.00 and set a “hold” rating for the company in a research report on Tuesday, March 11th. Finally, Hsbc Global Res downgraded shares of Illumina from a “strong-buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a research report on Friday, February 28th. One research analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, ten have issued a hold rating, ten have assigned a buy rating and one has given a strong buy rating to the company. According to MarketBeat.com, the company has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus price target of $140.90.

Illumina Trading Up 3.4 %

Illumina stock opened at $87.66 on Friday. The firm has a 50 day simple moving average of $108.20 and a 200-day simple moving average of $128.27. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.63, a current ratio of 1.77 and a quick ratio of 1.42. The stock has a market capitalization of $13.89 billion, a PE ratio of -11.41, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 1.60 and a beta of 1.17. Illumina, Inc. has a 12-month low of $80.18 and a 12-month high of $156.66.

Illumina (NASDAQ:ILMN) last posted its quarterly earnings data on Thursday, February 6th. The life sciences company reported $0.86 earnings per share (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 13.37%. As a group, equities research analysts expect that Illumina, Inc. will post 4.51 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Illumina Company Profile

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.