Stock Traders Purchase Large Volume of Put Options on Qiagen (NYSE:QGEN)

Qiagen N.V. (NYSE:QGEN) saw unusually large options trading activity on Thursday. Stock traders bought 8,189 put options on the stock. This is an increase of 460% compared to the average daily volume of 1,463 put options.

Analyst Ratings Changes

Several research firms have issued reports on QGEN. TD Cowen restated a “hold” rating on shares of Qiagen in a research report on Friday, February 6th. JPMorgan Chase & Co. raised their target price on Qiagen from $55.00 to $60.00 and gave the stock an “overweight” rating in a research note on Friday, February 6th. Stifel Nicolaus set a $50.00 price target on Qiagen and gave the company a “hold” rating in a research report on Friday, February 6th. Jefferies Financial Group restated a “buy” rating and issued a $59.00 price objective on shares of Qiagen in a research report on Thursday, February 5th. Finally, Barclays set a $58.00 target price on shares of Qiagen and gave the stock an “overweight” rating in a report on Friday, February 6th. Four investment analysts have rated the stock with a Buy rating and eight have issued a Hold rating to the stock. According to data from MarketBeat, Qiagen presently has an average rating of “Hold” and a consensus target price of $55.20.

Qiagen Price Performance

Shares of QGEN traded down $0.42 during trading hours on Thursday, reaching $48.61. 396,461 shares of the company’s stock traded hands, compared to its average volume of 2,839,972. The company has a current ratio of 3.90, a quick ratio of 3.31 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.44. The firm’s 50 day simple moving average is $49.86 and its 200-day simple moving average is $49.49. The stock has a market cap of $10.26 billion, a PE ratio of 24.10, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 2.38 and a beta of 0.67. Qiagen has a 12 month low of $39.61 and a 12 month high of $57.81.

Qiagen (NYSE:QGEN) last announced its earnings results on Thursday, February 5th. The company reported $0.62 earnings per share 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 business 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 earnings per share. Qiagen’s quarterly revenue was up 3.6% on a year-over-year basis. Equities analysts expect that Qiagen will post 2.26 EPS for the current year.

Institutional Inflows and Outflows

A number of institutional investors have recently added to or reduced their stakes in the company. Mercer Global Advisors Inc. ADV lifted its stake in Qiagen by 12.2% during the fourth quarter. Mercer Global Advisors Inc. ADV now owns 7,475 shares of the company’s stock worth $336,000 after purchasing an additional 815 shares during the last quarter. OLD Mission Capital LLC purchased a new position in shares of Qiagen during the 4th quarter valued at about $494,000. Caisse de depot et placement du Quebec lifted its position in Qiagen by 52.5% in the 4th quarter. Caisse de depot et placement du Quebec now owns 932,318 shares of the company’s stock worth $42,539,000 after buying an additional 320,850 shares during the last quarter. Schonfeld Strategic Advisors LLC lifted its position in Qiagen by 461.7% in the 4th quarter. Schonfeld Strategic Advisors LLC now owns 65,147 shares of the company’s stock worth $2,930,000 after buying an additional 53,549 shares during the last quarter. Finally, AQR Capital Management LLC boosted its stake in Qiagen by 265.8% in the fourth quarter. AQR Capital Management LLC now owns 397,993 shares of the company’s stock worth $18,055,000 after buying an additional 289,187 shares in the last quarter. 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.