Banque Cantonale Vaudoise Purchases New Shares in Illumina, Inc. (NASDAQ:ILMN)

Banque Cantonale Vaudoise purchased a new stake in Illumina, Inc. (NASDAQ:ILMN) during the 1st quarter, according to its most recent disclosure with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). The institutional investor purchased 5,391 shares of the life sciences company’s stock, valued at approximately $428,000.

Several other institutional investors have also recently added to or reduced their stakes in the stock. LPL Financial LLC boosted its holdings in Illumina by 24.6% in the fourth quarter. LPL Financial LLC now owns 82,867 shares of the life sciences company’s stock worth $11,073,000 after purchasing an additional 16,339 shares during the period. Arrowstreet Capital Limited Partnership acquired a new position in Illumina during the 4th quarter worth $9,023,000. O Shaughnessy Asset Management LLC boosted its position in Illumina by 84.2% during the 4th quarter. O Shaughnessy Asset Management LLC now owns 6,374 shares of the life sciences company’s stock worth $852,000 after acquiring an additional 2,913 shares during the period. HighPoint Advisor Group LLC raised its stake in shares of Illumina by 15.9% in the 4th quarter. HighPoint Advisor Group LLC now owns 2,121 shares of the life sciences company’s stock worth $283,000 after buying an additional 291 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Huntington National Bank raised its stake in shares of Illumina by 279.4% in the 4th quarter. Huntington National Bank now owns 1,954 shares of the life sciences company’s stock worth $261,000 after buying an additional 1,439 shares in the last quarter. 89.42% of the stock is owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

A number of brokerages recently issued reports on ILMN. Barclays lifted their target price on Illumina from $85.00 to $90.00 and gave the stock an “underweight” rating in a report on Friday. Wall Street Zen lowered Illumina from a “buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a report on Saturday. Morgan Stanley lowered their price target on shares of Illumina from $136.00 to $100.00 and set an “equal weight” rating on the stock in a report on Monday, May 12th. Scotiabank downgraded shares of Illumina from a “sector outperform” rating to a “sector perform” rating and set a $125.00 price target on the stock. in a report on Friday, July 11th. Finally, Robert W. Baird raised their price target on shares of Illumina from $84.00 to $105.00 and gave the company a “neutral” rating in a report on Monday, July 28th. Two analysts have rated the stock with a sell rating, ten have issued a hold rating, eight have given a buy rating and one has given a strong buy rating to the company’s stock. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, the stock has an average rating of “Hold” and an average price target of $127.21.

Insider Activity at Illumina

In other Illumina news, CFO Ankur Dhingra bought 6,100 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction dated Monday, May 12th. The shares were bought at an average price of $81.21 per share, for a total transaction of $495,381.00. Following the completion of the acquisition, the chief financial officer owned 24,906 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $2,022,616.26. This trade represents a 32.44% increase in their ownership of the stock. The purchase was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which is available through this hyperlink. Insiders own 2.60% of the company’s stock.

Illumina Trading Down 7.8%

Shares of Illumina stock opened at $94.66 on Friday. The firm has a market capitalization of $14.98 billion, a PE ratio of 11.98, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 2.01 and a beta of 1.37. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.63, a current ratio of 1.86 and a quick ratio of 1.48. The company’s fifty day moving average price is $93.80 and its two-hundred day moving average price is $92.89. Illumina, Inc. has a 52-week low of $68.70 and a 52-week high of $156.66.

Illumina (NASDAQ:ILMN) last issued its quarterly earnings data on Thursday, July 31st. The life sciences company reported $1.19 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $1.02 by $0.17. The company had revenue of $1.06 billion during the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $1.12 billion. Illumina had a return on equity of 28.84% and a net margin of 29.36%. The business’s revenue was down 4.8% on a year-over-year basis. During the same period last year, the business earned $0.36 earnings per share. On average, analysts expect that Illumina, Inc. will post 4.51 EPS 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.