Qiagen (NYSE:QGEN) Upgraded at StockNews.com

StockNews.com upgraded shares of Qiagen (NYSE:QGEN) from a buy rating to a strong-buy rating in a research report sent to investors on Friday.

A number of other analysts also recently commented on the company. Robert W. Baird upped their price objective on Qiagen from $42.00 to $43.00 and gave the stock a “neutral” rating in a report on Monday, April 21st. UBS Group lowered their price target on Qiagen from $50.00 to $48.00 and set a “neutral” rating for the company in a report on Friday, February 7th. Baird R W downgraded Qiagen from a “strong-buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a report on Wednesday, February 19th. Finally, Redburn Atlantic downgraded Qiagen from a “buy” rating to a “neutral” rating in a report on Friday, April 4th. Seven research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, three have issued a buy rating and one has assigned a strong buy rating to the company. According to MarketBeat.com, Qiagen has a consensus rating of “Hold” and a consensus price target of $48.42.

Qiagen Trading Down 0.7%

Shares of QGEN opened at $41.87 on Friday. The stock has a fifty day moving average of $40.67 and a two-hundred day moving average of $41.76. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.38, a quick ratio of 3.09 and a current ratio of 3.61. The company has a market capitalization of $9.31 billion, a PE ratio of 116.59, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 2.39 and a beta of 0.67. Qiagen has a fifty-two week low of $37.63 and a fifty-two week high of $49.30.

Qiagen (NYSE:QGEN) last issued its quarterly earnings results on Wednesday, May 7th. The company reported $0.55 earnings per share for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $0.50 by $0.05. The company had revenue of $483.46 million during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $465.66 million. Qiagen had a return on equity of 13.92% and a net margin of 4.23%. Qiagen’s revenue was up 5.2% on a year-over-year basis. During the same period in the previous year, the firm posted $0.44 EPS. As a group, analysts forecast that Qiagen will post 2.26 EPS for the current year.

Hedge Funds Weigh In On Qiagen

Large investors have recently modified their holdings of the stock. Park Avenue Securities LLC lifted its position in shares of Qiagen by 32.1% during the fourth quarter. Park Avenue Securities LLC now owns 8,908 shares of the company’s stock worth $397,000 after purchasing an additional 2,166 shares during the last quarter. GAMMA Investing LLC raised its stake in Qiagen by 170.1% during the fourth quarter. GAMMA Investing LLC now owns 1,518 shares of the company’s stock worth $68,000 after acquiring an additional 956 shares during the period. Assenagon Asset Management S.A. raised its stake in Qiagen by 34.7% during the fourth quarter. Assenagon Asset Management S.A. now owns 16,409 shares of the company’s stock worth $731,000 after acquiring an additional 4,225 shares during the period. Wells Fargo & Company MN raised its stake in Qiagen by 31.8% during the fourth quarter. Wells Fargo & Company MN now owns 66,779 shares of the company’s stock worth $2,974,000 after acquiring an additional 16,106 shares during the period. Finally, LPL Financial LLC raised its stake in Qiagen by 2.6% during the fourth quarter. LPL Financial LLC now owns 17,240 shares of the company’s stock worth $768,000 after acquiring an additional 432 shares during the period. Institutional investors own 70.00% of the company’s stock.

Qiagen Company Profile

QIAGEN NV is a holding company, which engages in the provision of Sample to Insight solutions that enable customers to gain valuable molecular insights from samples containing the building blocks of life. The company sample technologies isolate and process DNA, RNA, and proteins from blood, tissue, and other materials.