Analysts Set Qiagen N.V. (NYSE:QGEN) Price Target at $44.98

Qiagen N.V. (NYSE:QGEN) has received a consensus rating of “Hold” from the thirteen brokerages that are presently covering the company, Marketbeat Ratings reports. One equities research analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, six have given a hold rating, five have assigned a buy rating and one has given a strong buy rating to the company. The average 12-month target price among analysts that have issued ratings on the stock in the last year is $44.7081.

Several research analysts recently weighed in on the stock. Weiss Ratings cut shares of Qiagen from a “hold (c-)” rating to a “sell (d+)” rating in a research report on Friday, May 29th. Citigroup restated a “hold” rating on shares of Qiagen in a research report on Monday, May 18th. Zacks Research upgraded shares of Qiagen from a “strong sell” rating to a “hold” rating in a research report on Wednesday, April 29th. Deutsche Bank Aktiengesellschaft restated a “buy” rating and issued a $43.00 price objective on shares of Qiagen in a research report on Thursday, April 30th. Finally, Robert W. Baird set a $43.00 target price on Qiagen and gave the stock an “outperform” rating in a research note on Wednesday, April 29th.

Qiagen Stock Up 4.2%

QGEN stock opened at $38.75 on Thursday. The company has a current ratio of 3.21, a quick ratio of 2.57 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.49. The company’s 50 day moving average is $36.45 and its 200 day moving average is $43.26. The stock has a market cap of $7.98 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 20.24, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 3.71 and a beta of 0.66. Qiagen has a 1-year low of $32.53 and a 1-year high of $57.81.

Qiagen (NYSE:QGEN) last posted its quarterly earnings data on Thursday, May 7th. The company reported $0.54 earnings per share for the quarter, hitting the consensus estimate of $0.54. The company had revenue of $492.32 million for the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $496.15 million. Qiagen had a net margin of 19.16% and a return on equity of 14.40%. During the same period in the prior year, the business earned $0.56 earnings per share. Sell-side analysts predict that Qiagen will post 2.43 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Qiagen Increases Dividend

The company also recently announced an annual dividend, which will be paid on Tuesday, July 14th. Shareholders of record on Tuesday, July 7th will be paid a $0.35 dividend. This is an increase from Qiagen’s previous annual dividend of $0.26. This represents a yield of 104.0%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Tuesday, July 7th. Qiagen’s payout ratio is currently 13.61%.

Institutional Trading of Qiagen

Several hedge funds and other institutional investors have recently bought and sold shares of the company. Massachusetts Financial Services Co. MA boosted its stake in Qiagen by 1.1% in the fourth quarter. Massachusetts Financial Services Co. MA now owns 24,205,881 shares of the company’s stock worth $1,088,538,000 after buying an additional 264,921 shares in the last quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. boosted its stake in Qiagen by 1.3% in the fourth quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 9,542,944 shares of the company’s stock worth $433,871,000 after buying an additional 118,135 shares in the last quarter. Price T Rowe Associates Inc. MD boosted its stake in Qiagen by 12.1% in the fourth quarter. Price T Rowe Associates Inc. MD now owns 8,429,424 shares of the company’s stock worth $379,072,000 after buying an additional 906,589 shares in the last quarter. Deutsche Bank AG boosted its stake in Qiagen by 9.7% in the fourth quarter. Deutsche Bank AG now owns 7,907,801 shares of the company’s stock worth $355,614,000 after buying an additional 697,342 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Amundi boosted its stake in Qiagen by 12.4% in the first quarter. Amundi now owns 4,757,681 shares of the company’s stock worth $190,498,000 after buying an additional 524,959 shares in the last quarter. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 70.00% of the company’s stock.

Qiagen Company Profile

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.