First Trust Advisors LP Sells 89,600 Shares of Illumina, Inc. $ILMN

First Trust Advisors LP lessened its stake in Illumina, Inc. (NASDAQ:ILMN) by 16.2% in the third quarter, Holdings Channel reports. The firm owned 464,958 shares of the life sciences company’s stock after selling 89,600 shares during the quarter. First Trust Advisors LP’s holdings in Illumina were worth $44,157,000 at the end of the most recent reporting period.

Several other institutional investors and hedge funds have also bought and sold shares of ILMN. Loomis Sayles & Co. L P grew its stake in Illumina by 1.9% during the second quarter. Loomis Sayles & Co. L P now owns 4,225,529 shares of the life sciences company’s stock worth $403,158,000 after buying an additional 78,317 shares in the last quarter. AQR Capital Management LLC raised its position in shares of Illumina by 55.3% in the 2nd quarter. AQR Capital Management LLC now owns 3,295,880 shares of the life sciences company’s stock valued at $313,290,000 after buying an additional 1,174,295 shares in the last quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC lifted its holdings in shares of Illumina by 0.7% during the 2nd quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC now owns 2,869,187 shares of the life sciences company’s stock worth $272,921,000 after acquiring an additional 21,342 shares during the period. Bank of America Corp DE lifted its holdings in shares of Illumina by 1.9% during the 2nd quarter. Bank of America Corp DE now owns 1,930,843 shares of the life sciences company’s stock worth $184,222,000 after acquiring an additional 35,167 shares during the period. Finally, ARK Investment Management LLC boosted its position in shares of Illumina by 25.7% during the 3rd quarter. ARK Investment Management LLC now owns 1,467,879 shares of the life sciences company’s stock worth $139,405,000 after acquiring an additional 299,801 shares in the last quarter. Institutional investors own 89.42% of the company’s stock.

Illumina Stock Performance

NASDAQ ILMN opened at $121.50 on Thursday. The company has a market capitalization of $18.58 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 22.29, a PEG ratio of 2.34 and a beta of 1.45. The company has a quick ratio of 1.72, a current ratio of 2.08 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.55. Illumina, Inc. has a twelve month low of $68.70 and a twelve month high of $155.53. The stock has a fifty day simple moving average of $133.77 and a 200 day simple moving average of $119.71.

Illumina (NASDAQ:ILMN) last announced its earnings results on Thursday, February 5th. The life sciences company reported $1.35 EPS for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $1.26 by $0.09. Illumina had a return on equity of 31.04% and a net margin of 19.57%.The firm had revenue of $1.16 billion for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $1.10 billion. During the same period in the previous year, the business earned $0.95 EPS. The business’s quarterly revenue was up 5.0% compared to the same quarter last year. Illumina has set its FY 2026 guidance at 5.050-5.200 EPS. Sell-side analysts expect that Illumina, Inc. will post 4.51 EPS for the current year.

Insider Transactions at Illumina

In related news, SVP Patricia Leckman sold 2,370 shares of Illumina stock in a transaction that occurred on Wednesday, February 18th. The stock was sold at an average price of $116.18, for a total value of $275,346.60. Following the transaction, the senior vice president directly owned 16,321 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $1,896,173.78. The trade was a 12.68% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available through the SEC website. Also, insider Scott M. Davies sold 323 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Friday, December 12th. The shares were sold at an average price of $136.09, for a total value of $43,957.07. Following the completion of the sale, the insider owned 17,887 shares in the company, valued at $2,434,241.83. The trade was a 1.77% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale is available in the SEC filing. 2.60% of the stock is owned by company insiders.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

A number of brokerages recently issued reports on ILMN. Weiss Ratings reissued a “hold (c-)” rating on shares of Illumina in a research note on Monday, December 29th. TD Cowen reaffirmed a “hold” rating on shares of Illumina in a report on Wednesday, January 7th. Stifel Nicolaus lifted their price target on Illumina from $135.00 to $155.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a research note on Tuesday, January 20th. Wall Street Zen raised Illumina from a “buy” rating to a “strong-buy” rating in a report on Saturday, February 14th. Finally, Piper Sandler dropped their price objective on Illumina from $195.00 to $170.00 and set an “overweight” rating for the company in a research report on Monday, February 9th. Six research analysts have rated the stock with a Buy rating, ten have given a Hold rating and two have issued a Sell rating to the company. Based on data from MarketBeat, the company has an average rating of “Hold” and a consensus target price of $129.69.

About Illumina

Illumina, Inc (NASDAQ: ILMN) is a global life sciences company that develops, manufactures and markets integrated systems for the analysis of genetic variation and function. Headquartered in San Diego, California and founded in 1998, Illumina offers a range of sequencing and array-based technologies used by academic researchers, clinical laboratories, pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies, consumer genomics firms and agricultural researchers to enable discovery, translational research and clinical applications.

The company’s product portfolio includes next-generation sequencing (NGS) platforms and associated consumables, microarrays for genotyping and methylation analysis, library preparation kits and targeted assays.