Qiagen (NYSE:QGEN) Upgraded at Wall Street Zen

Wall Street Zen upgraded shares of Qiagen (NYSE:QGEN) from a hold rating to a buy rating in a research note released on Saturday.

QGEN has been the topic of a number of other research reports. UBS Group set a $52.00 price target on Qiagen in a research note on Monday, February 9th. Stifel Nicolaus set a $50.00 target price on shares of Qiagen and gave the company a “hold” rating in a report on Friday, February 6th. Jefferies Financial Group reiterated a “buy” rating and issued a $59.00 price target on shares of Qiagen in a research report on Thursday, February 5th. TD Cowen reissued a “hold” rating on shares of Qiagen in a research report on Friday, February 6th. Finally, Deutsche Bank Aktiengesellschaft lowered shares of Qiagen from a “buy” rating to a “hold” rating and lifted their price objective for the company from $52.00 to $54.00 in a research note on Thursday, January 22nd. Four equities research analysts have rated the stock with a Buy rating and eight have assigned a Hold rating to the stock. According to MarketBeat, the company has an average rating of “Hold” and a consensus price target of $55.20.

Qiagen Stock Down 2.3%

QGEN stock opened at $47.46 on Friday. The stock has a market cap of $10.02 billion, a P/E ratio of 23.54, a PEG ratio of 2.37 and a beta of 0.67. The company has a current ratio of 3.90, a quick ratio of 3.31 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.44. Qiagen has a twelve month low of $39.61 and a twelve month high of $57.81. The company’s 50 day moving average is $49.89 and its two-hundred day moving average is $49.40.

Qiagen (NYSE:QGEN) last posted its earnings results on Thursday, February 5th. The company reported $0.62 EPS for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $0.61 by $0.01. Qiagen had a net margin of 20.33% and a return on equity of 14.56%. The firm had revenue of $540.42 million for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $528.53 million. During the same period last year, the firm posted $0.61 EPS. The company’s revenue was up 3.6% on a year-over-year basis. Research analysts expect that Qiagen will post 2.26 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Institutional Trading of Qiagen

Hedge funds and other institutional investors have recently made changes to their positions in the company. Amalgamated Bank boosted its stake in shares of Qiagen by 1.8% during the 2nd quarter. Amalgamated Bank now owns 11,751 shares of the company’s stock worth $565,000 after acquiring an additional 209 shares in the last quarter. Atria Investments Inc raised its holdings in Qiagen by 2.9% during the second quarter. Atria Investments Inc now owns 7,674 shares of the company’s stock worth $369,000 after purchasing an additional 218 shares during the last quarter. ANTIPODES PARTNERS Ltd raised its holdings in Qiagen by 9.4% during the second quarter. ANTIPODES PARTNERS Ltd now owns 2,566 shares of the company’s stock worth $123,000 after purchasing an additional 221 shares during the last quarter. Johnson Investment Counsel Inc. boosted its position in Qiagen by 0.4% during the third quarter. Johnson Investment Counsel Inc. now owns 57,359 shares of the company’s stock worth $2,563,000 after purchasing an additional 240 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Allworth Financial LP grew its holdings in Qiagen by 23.2% in the third quarter. Allworth Financial LP now owns 1,358 shares of the company’s stock valued at $61,000 after purchasing an additional 256 shares during the last quarter. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 70.00% of the company’s stock.

About Qiagen

Qiagen NV (NYSE: QGEN) is a global provider of sample and assay technologies designed to enable molecular testing in the fields of molecular diagnostics, applied testing, academic research and pharmaceutical development. The company’s solutions span the full workflow of nucleic acid and protein analysis, offering customers standardized kits, instruments and software tools that streamline the preparation, detection and quantification of DNA, RNA and proteins.

The company’s product portfolio includes nucleic acid extraction and purification systems, polymerase chain reaction (PCR) reagents and instrumentation, digital PCR platforms, next-generation sequencing (NGS) library?preparation kits and proteomics solutions.