Royal Bank Of Canada Upgrades Guardant Health (NASDAQ:GH) to Moderate Buy

Guardant Health (NASDAQ:GH) was upgraded by investment analysts at Royal Bank Of Canada to a “moderate buy” rating in a research note issued on Thursday,Zacks.com reports.

GH has been the topic of several other research reports. Canaccord Genuity Group boosted their price objective on Guardant Health from $125.00 to $135.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a report on Friday, February 20th. Evercore raised Guardant Health from an “in-line” rating to an “outperform” rating and set a $160.00 target price for the company in a research report on Tuesday, June 2nd. Raymond James Financial reiterated an “outperform” rating and set a $129.00 price target on shares of Guardant Health in a research note on Monday, February 23rd. BTIG Research set a $160.00 price target on shares of Guardant Health and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a research report on Wednesday, May 27th. Finally, Wolfe Research initiated coverage on shares of Guardant Health in a research note on Tuesday, June 2nd. They issued an “outperform” rating and a $150.00 price objective for the company. One investment analyst has rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, twenty-one have issued a Buy rating and one has issued a Sell rating to the company. According to data from MarketBeat, the stock has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average price target of $141.95.

Guardant Health Stock Up 0.6%

NASDAQ:GH opened at $131.62 on Thursday. The stock’s fifty day moving average is $103.51 and its two-hundred day moving average is $102.14. Guardant Health has a 52 week low of $40.35 and a 52 week high of $134.28. The stock has a market capitalization of $17.45 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of -38.83 and a beta of 1.61.

Insider Transactions at Guardant Health

In other news, Director Medina Manuel Hidalgo sold 1,000 shares of Guardant Health stock in a transaction dated Thursday, May 28th. The stock was sold at an average price of $130.06, for a total transaction of $130,060.00. Following the sale, the director owned 639 shares in the company, valued at approximately $83,108.34. The trade was a 61.01% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is accessible through this link. Also, CEO Helmy Eltoukhy sold 100,000 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction dated Friday, June 5th. The shares were sold at an average price of $126.30, for a total value of $12,630,000.00. Following the completion of the sale, the chief executive officer directly owned 2,012,919 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $254,231,669.70. The trade was a 4.73% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale is available in the SEC filing. Insiders sold 452,238 shares of company stock valued at $51,425,612 over the last quarter. 5.60% of the stock is owned by corporate insiders.

Institutional Inflows and Outflows

Several institutional investors have recently added to or reduced their stakes in GH. Alyeska Investment Group L.P. acquired a new stake in shares of Guardant Health in the third quarter valued at approximately $114,421,000. Price T Rowe Associates Inc. MD increased its holdings in shares of Guardant Health by 33.5% in 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 acquiring an additional 1,414,441 shares during the period. Norges Bank acquired a new position in shares of Guardant Health in the 4th quarter valued at $128,499,000. Summit Partners Public Asset Management LLC raised its position in Guardant Health by 674.5% in the 4th quarter. Summit Partners Public Asset Management LLC now owns 851,958 shares of the company’s stock valued at $87,019,000 after purchasing an additional 741,958 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Franklin Resources Inc. raised its position in Guardant Health by 26.1% in the 3rd quarter. Franklin Resources Inc. now owns 2,926,315 shares of the company’s stock valued at $182,836,000 after purchasing an additional 606,368 shares during the last quarter. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 92.60% of the company’s stock.

Guardant Health Company Profile

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.