Cerus Corporation (NASDAQ:CERS) Stock Rated “Hold” by Sell-Side Analysts

Shares of Cerus Corporation (NASDAQ:CERS) have been assigned a consensus recommendation of “Hold” from the five ratings firms that are presently covering the firm, MarketBeat.com reports. One investment analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, one has given a hold rating and three have assigned a buy rating to the company. The average 1 year price objective among brokerages that have updated their coverage on the stock in the last year is $5.25.

Several research firms recently commented on CERS. Freedom Broker started coverage on Cerus in a research note on Thursday, August 20th. They issued a “buy” rating and a $6.50 price target on the stock. Weiss Ratings restated a “sell (d-)” rating on shares of Cerus in a research note on Monday, September 14th. Finally, Wall Street Zen upgraded Cerus from a “hold” rating to a “buy” rating in a research note on Saturday, September 5th.

Cerus Stock Performance

Cerus stock opened at $2.26 on Wednesday. Cerus has a 12-month low of $1.38 and a 12-month high of $3.47. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.49, a current ratio of 1.83 and a quick ratio of 1.07. The company has a market capitalization of $455.44 million, a price-to-earnings ratio of -75.33 and a beta of 1.83. The firm’s fifty day moving average price is $2.56 and its 200 day moving average price is $2.54.

Cerus (NASDAQ:CERS) last posted its quarterly earnings data on Thursday, July 30th. The biotechnology company reported ($0.01) earnings per share for the quarter, meeting analysts’ consensus estimates of ($0.01). Cerus had a negative net margin of 3.06% and a negative return on equity of 10.19%. The company had revenue of $63.30 million during the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $62.90 million. On average, research analysts forecast that Cerus will post -0.04 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Insider Activity

In other Cerus news, insider Chrystal Jensen sold 30,000 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Monday, August 17th. The stock was sold at an average price of $2.98, for a total value of $89,400.00. Following the transaction, the insider directly owned 936,657 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $2,791,237.86. This represents a 3.10% decrease in their position. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which is available at the SEC website. 5.30% of the stock is currently owned by insiders.

Institutional Trading of Cerus

A number of hedge funds have recently made changes to their positions in the stock. BlackRock Inc. bought a new stake in shares of Cerus in the second quarter worth $64,868,000. Ieq Capital LLC acquired a new stake in Cerus in the second quarter valued at $7,026,000. Algert Global LLC boosted its stake in Cerus by 1,154.3% during the 2nd quarter. Algert Global LLC now owns 1,491,119 shares of the biotechnology company’s stock valued at $4,354,000 after acquiring an additional 1,372,243 shares during the last quarter. Bank of America Corp DE bought a new position in Cerus during the 2nd quarter valued at $2,536,000. Finally, Primecap Management Co. CA bought a new position in Cerus during the 2nd quarter valued at $2,283,000. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 78.37% of the company’s stock.

About Cerus

Cerus Corporation is a biomedical products company that develops and commercializes technologies intended to improve the safety of donated blood components. Its primary platform is the INTERCEPT Blood System, which is designed to reduce the risk of transfusion-transmitted infections by inactivating viruses, bacteria, parasites and contaminating white blood cells in donated blood products.

The INTERCEPT portfolio includes systems for treating platelet and plasma components, as well as technologies developed for red blood cells.