Louisiana State Employees Retirement System Purchases New Position in Bio-Rad Laboratories, Inc. $BIO

Louisiana State Employees Retirement System purchased a new position in Bio-Rad Laboratories, Inc. (NYSE:BIO) in the first quarter, HoldingsChannel reports. The fund purchased 5,300 shares of the medical research company’s stock, valued at approximately $1,477,000.

Other institutional investors and hedge funds have also bought and sold shares of the company. William B. Walkup & Associates Inc. grew its holdings in shares of Bio-Rad Laboratories by 2.6% during the 1st quarter. William B. Walkup & Associates Inc. now owns 1,902 shares of the medical research company’s stock worth $530,000 after acquiring an additional 48 shares during the period. Blue Trust Inc. lifted its stake in shares of Bio-Rad Laboratories by 8.6% in the 1st quarter. Blue Trust Inc. now owns 1,553 shares of the medical research company’s stock valued at $433,000 after purchasing an additional 123 shares during the period. OP Asset Management Ltd bought a new stake in shares of Bio-Rad Laboratories during the first quarter valued at approximately $1,826,000. Assenagon Asset Management S.A. boosted its position in shares of Bio-Rad Laboratories by 6,586.3% during the first quarter. Assenagon Asset Management S.A. now owns 147,834 shares of the medical research company’s stock valued at $41,209,000 after purchasing an additional 145,623 shares in the last quarter. Finally, SG Americas Securities LLC grew its stake in Bio-Rad Laboratories by 253.3% in the first quarter. SG Americas Securities LLC now owns 66,985 shares of the medical research company’s stock worth $18,672,000 after purchasing an additional 48,027 shares during the period. 65.24% of the stock is currently owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

A number of research firms have issued reports on BIO. Royal Bank Of Canada started coverage on Bio-Rad Laboratories in a report on Friday, May 15th. They issued an “outperform” rating and a $320.00 price objective for the company. Wells Fargo & Company dropped their target price on shares of Bio-Rad Laboratories from $320.00 to $290.00 and set an “equal weight” rating on the stock in a report on Friday, May 1st. Weiss Ratings downgraded shares of Bio-Rad Laboratories from a “sell (d+)” rating to a “sell (d)” rating in a research report on Wednesday, May 6th. Finally, Citigroup lowered shares of Bio-Rad Laboratories from a “buy” rating to a “neutral” rating and decreased their price target for the stock from $375.00 to $300.00 in a research note on Tuesday, April 7th. One research analyst has rated the stock with a Buy rating, three have given a Hold rating and one has assigned a Sell rating to the company. According to data from MarketBeat, the stock presently has an average rating of “Hold” and an average price target of $303.33.

Bio-Rad Laboratories Stock Performance

Shares of BIO opened at $296.78 on Friday. The company has a quick ratio of 2.37, a current ratio of 3.21 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.12. The business’s 50 day moving average price is $284.17 and its 200-day moving average price is $287.97. Bio-Rad Laboratories, Inc. has a 52 week low of $236.73 and a 52 week high of $343.12. The stock has a market cap of $7.94 billion, a P/E ratio of 48.89 and a beta of 1.08.

Bio-Rad Laboratories (NYSE:BIO) last posted its quarterly earnings results on Thursday, April 30th. The medical research company reported $1.89 earnings per share for the quarter, missing the consensus estimate of $1.97 by ($0.08). Bio-Rad Laboratories had a return on equity of 3.56% and a net margin of 6.52%.The company had revenue of $592.10 million during the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $589.91 million. During the same quarter in the previous year, the company earned $2.54 EPS. The business’s quarterly revenue was up 1.1% on a year-over-year basis. Equities research analysts anticipate that Bio-Rad Laboratories, Inc. will post 9.42 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Bio-Rad Laboratories Company Profile

Bio-Rad Laboratories, Inc is a global provider of life science research and clinical diagnostic products. The company operates through two primary business segments: Life Science and Clinical Diagnostics. Within the Life Science segment, Bio-Rad offers instruments, reagents and consumables for protein analysis, cell biology, gene expression and other molecular biology applications. The Clinical Diagnostics segment supplies quality control products, blood-typing reagents and instruments, and molecular diagnostic assays used in blood screening, infectious disease testing and routine clinical laboratories.

Founded in 1952 by David and Alice Schwartz and headquartered in Hercules, California, Bio-Rad has grown its footprint across the Americas, Europe, Asia-Pacific and other regions.