Insider Selling: Guardant Health (NASDAQ:GH) Director Sells $735,044.40 in Stock

Guardant Health, Inc. (NASDAQ:GH) Director Ian Clark sold 6,876 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction dated Wednesday, May 20th. The stock was sold at an average price of $106.90, for a total transaction of $735,044.40. Following the transaction, the director owned 2,975 shares in the company, valued at approximately $318,027.50. This trade represents a 69.80% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which can be accessed through the SEC website.

Guardant Health Stock Performance

Guardant Health stock opened at $118.95 on Monday. Guardant Health, Inc. has a fifty-two week low of $36.36 and a fifty-two week high of $121.01. The stock has a market cap of $15.77 billion, a PE ratio of -35.09 and a beta of 1.48. The firm’s 50-day simple moving average is $91.15 and its 200 day simple moving average is $98.94.

Guardant Health (NASDAQ:GH) last released 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 company had revenue of $281.27 million for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $269.74 million. The business’s revenue was up 39.4% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same quarter in the previous year, the business posted ($0.62) EPS. As a group, analysts predict that Guardant Health, Inc. will post -2.92 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

A number of research firms have weighed in on GH. Piper Sandler set a $127.00 target price on shares of Guardant Health in a research note on Thursday. Canaccord Genuity Group boosted their target price on shares of Guardant Health from $125.00 to $135.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a research note on Friday, February 20th. Citigroup boosted their target price on shares of Guardant Health from $135.00 to $150.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a research note on Friday, February 20th. Weiss Ratings reiterated a “sell (d-)” rating on shares of Guardant Health in a research note on Tuesday, April 21st. Finally, Wells Fargo & Company boosted their target price on shares of Guardant Health from $120.00 to $125.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a research note on Friday, February 20th. Nineteen investment analysts have rated the stock with a Buy rating, one has given a Hold rating and one has assigned a Sell rating to the company. Based on data from MarketBeat, the company currently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $129.00.

Institutional Trading of Guardant Health

A number of institutional investors have recently modified their holdings of the business. Vanguard Group Inc. lifted its stake in shares of Guardant Health by 2.1% during the 4th quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 12,160,768 shares of the company’s stock valued at $1,242,101,000 after buying an additional 251,939 shares in the last quarter. Price T Rowe Associates Inc. MD lifted its stake in shares of Guardant Health by 33.5% during the 4th quarter. Price T Rowe Associates Inc. MD now owns 5,636,078 shares of the company’s stock valued at $575,670,000 after buying an additional 1,414,441 shares in the last quarter. Baillie Gifford & Co. lifted its stake in shares of Guardant Health by 6.6% during the 3rd quarter. Baillie Gifford & Co. now owns 5,127,692 shares of the company’s stock valued at $320,378,000 after buying an additional 317,906 shares in the last quarter. Franklin Resources Inc. lifted its stake in shares of Guardant Health by 14.9% during the 4th quarter. Franklin Resources Inc. now owns 3,361,547 shares of the company’s stock valued at $343,348,000 after buying an additional 435,232 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Geode Capital Management LLC lifted its stake in shares of Guardant Health by 9.4% during the 4th quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC now owns 3,213,657 shares of the company’s stock valued at $328,297,000 after buying an additional 277,001 shares in the last quarter. 92.60% of the stock is currently owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

About Guardant Health

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.