Amirali Talasaz Sells 210,000 Shares of Guardant Health (NASDAQ:GH) Stock

Guardant Health, Inc. (NASDAQ:GH) CEO Amirali Talasaz sold 210,000 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction on Wednesday, May 20th. The stock was sold at an average price of $109.89, for a total value of $23,076,900.00. Following the completion of the sale, the chief executive officer directly owned 1,886,504 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $207,307,924.56. This trade represents a 10.02% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available at the SEC website. The transaction was executed under a pre-arranged Rule 10b5-1 trading plan.

Amirali Talasaz also recently made the following trade(s):

• On Tuesday, May 12th, Amirali Talasaz sold 50,000 shares of Guardant Health stock. The stock was sold at an average price of $100.32, for a total transaction of $5,016,000.00.

Guardant Health Trading Up 0.8%

GH stock traded up $0.94 during trading on Friday, reaching $118.95. 2,633,856 shares of the stock were exchanged, compared to its average volume of 2,090,416. The business has a 50 day moving average price of $90.53 and a 200-day moving average price of $98.79. Guardant Health, Inc. has a 1 year low of $36.36 and a 1 year high of $121.01. The firm has a market capitalization of $15.77 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of -35.09 and a beta of 1.48.

Guardant Health (NASDAQ:GH) last posted its quarterly earnings results on Thursday, February 19th. The company reported ($0.50) earnings per share for the quarter, missing the consensus estimate of ($0.43) by ($0.07). The firm had revenue of $281.27 million for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $269.74 million. Guardant Health’s revenue for the quarter was up 39.4% on a year-over-year basis. During the same period last year, the business posted ($0.62) earnings per share. On average, research analysts anticipate that Guardant Health, Inc. will post -2.92 EPS for the current year.

Hedge Funds Weigh In On Guardant Health

Several institutional investors have recently bought and sold shares of GH. AQR Capital Management LLC boosted its stake in shares of Guardant Health by 56.5% in the first quarter. AQR Capital Management LLC now owns 71,534 shares of the company’s stock valued at $3,012,000 after purchasing an additional 25,831 shares during the period. Empowered Funds LLC purchased a new stake in Guardant Health during the 1st quarter worth approximately $274,000. Sei Investments Co. increased its stake in Guardant Health by 15.8% during the 2nd quarter. Sei Investments Co. now owns 77,308 shares of the company’s stock worth $4,023,000 after buying an additional 10,538 shares during the period. The Manufacturers Life Insurance Company lifted its holdings in Guardant Health by 9.4% during the 2nd quarter. The Manufacturers Life Insurance Company now owns 632,630 shares of the company’s stock worth $32,922,000 after buying an additional 54,284 shares in the last quarter. Finally, MIRAE ASSET GLOBAL ETFS HOLDINGS Ltd. boosted its position in Guardant Health by 56.4% in the 2nd quarter. MIRAE ASSET GLOBAL ETFS HOLDINGS Ltd. now owns 111,445 shares of the company’s stock valued at $5,800,000 after buying an additional 40,209 shares during the period. 92.60% of the stock is owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

A number of research firms have recently weighed in on GH. JPMorgan Chase & Co. increased their price target on Guardant Health from $130.00 to $135.00 and gave the stock an “overweight” rating in a report on Friday, May 8th. Evercore set a $110.00 target price on shares of Guardant Health in a research report on Friday, February 20th. Barclays increased their target price on shares of Guardant Health from $115.00 to $120.00 and gave the stock an “overweight” rating in a research note on Friday, May 8th. UBS Group reissued a “buy” rating and issued a $175.00 price target on shares of Guardant Health in a research note on Friday, January 30th. Finally, Citigroup upped their price objective on shares of Guardant Health from $135.00 to $150.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a report on Friday, February 20th. Nineteen investment analysts have rated the stock with a Buy rating, one has issued a Hold rating and one has issued a Sell rating to the company’s stock. According to MarketBeat.com, the company has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus target price of $129.00.

Guardant Health Company Profile

Guardant Health, Inc is a precision oncology company specializing in blood-based cancer diagnostics. Founded in 2012 and headquartered in Redwood City, California, the company develops non-invasive tests that use circulating tumor DNA (ctDNA) to profile genomic alterations in patients with solid tumors. Guardant Health’s mission is to advance cancer care by providing actionable data to clinicians, pharmaceutical partners and researchers worldwide.

The company’s flagship product, Guardant360, is a next-generation sequencing (NGS) assay designed to detect mutations, copy number variations and select fusions in more than 70 cancer-related genes.