Qiagen (NYSE:QGEN) Upgraded at StockNews.com

StockNews.com upgraded shares of Qiagen (NYSE:QGEN) from a buy rating to a strong-buy rating in a research note issued to investors on Friday.

Several other equities analysts have also weighed in on the stock. Baird R W lowered shares of Qiagen from a “strong-buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a report on Wednesday, February 19th. Redburn Atlantic lowered shares of Qiagen from a “buy” rating to a “neutral” rating in a research note on Friday, April 4th. UBS Group lowered their price objective on shares of Qiagen from $50.00 to $48.00 and set a “neutral” rating on the stock in a research note on Friday, February 7th. Finally, Robert W. Baird lifted their target price on shares of Qiagen from $42.00 to $43.00 and gave the stock a “neutral” rating in a report on Monday, April 21st. Seven analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, three have assigned a buy rating and one has issued a strong buy rating to the company. According to data from MarketBeat.com, the company has an average rating of “Hold” and a consensus price target of $48.42.

Qiagen Trading Down 0.7%

Shares of NYSE:QGEN opened at $41.87 on Friday. Qiagen has a 12-month low of $37.63 and a 12-month high of $49.30. The firm has a fifty day moving average of $40.67 and a two-hundred day moving average of $41.76. The company has a quick ratio of 3.09, a current ratio of 3.61 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.38. The firm has a market capitalization of $9.31 billion, a P/E ratio of 116.59, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 2.39 and a beta of 0.67.

Qiagen (NYSE:QGEN) last announced its quarterly earnings data on Wednesday, May 7th. The company reported $0.55 EPS for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $0.50 by $0.05. The business had revenue of $483.46 million during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $465.66 million. Qiagen had a net margin of 4.23% and a return on equity of 13.92%. The firm’s revenue for the quarter was up 5.2% on a year-over-year basis. During the same quarter in the prior year, the business earned $0.44 earnings per share. On average, equities analysts expect that Qiagen will post 2.26 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Institutional Trading of Qiagen

Institutional investors and hedge funds have recently made changes to their positions in the company. Groupama Asset Managment increased its position in Qiagen by 8,074.0% during the 4th quarter. Groupama Asset Managment now owns 31,817,740 shares of the company’s stock worth $1,416,844,000 after purchasing an additional 32,216,761 shares in the last quarter. Norges Bank acquired a new stake in shares of Qiagen during the fourth quarter worth $181,529,000. Massachusetts Financial Services Co. MA increased its position in shares of Qiagen by 9.5% during the fourth quarter. Massachusetts Financial Services Co. MA now owns 25,319,332 shares of the company’s stock worth $1,127,470,000 after buying an additional 2,202,040 shares during the period. Universal Beteiligungs und Servicegesellschaft mbH acquired a new stake in shares of Qiagen during the fourth quarter worth $95,746,000. Finally, Deutsche Bank AG boosted its stake in Qiagen by 57.5% during the first quarter. Deutsche Bank AG now owns 4,491,131 shares of the company’s stock worth $180,319,000 after acquiring an additional 1,639,621 shares in the last quarter. Institutional investors own 70.00% of the company’s stock.

About Qiagen

QIAGEN NV is a holding company, which engages in the provision of Sample to Insight solutions that enable customers to gain valuable molecular insights from samples containing the building blocks of life. The company sample technologies isolate and process DNA, RNA, and proteins from blood, tissue, and other materials.