Wall Street Zen Upgrades GRAIL (NASDAQ:GRAL) to Hold

GRAIL (NASDAQ:GRAL) was upgraded by equities researchers at Wall Street Zen from a “sell” rating to a “hold” rating in a report issued on Sunday, Wall Street Zen reports.

GRAL has been the subject of several other reports. The Goldman Sachs Group initiated coverage on GRAIL in a research report on Friday, June 5th. They issued a “neutral” rating and a $60.00 price objective for the company. Wolfe Research started coverage on GRAIL in a report on Tuesday, June 2nd. They set a “peer perform” rating for the company. Weiss Ratings reissued a “sell (d-)” rating on shares of GRAIL in a research report on Friday, July 17th. TD Cowen restated a “buy” rating on shares of GRAIL in a report on Wednesday, July 15th. Finally, Mizuho upped their target price on shares of GRAIL from $58.00 to $65.00 and gave the company a “neutral” rating in a research report on Wednesday, July 15th. Five equities research analysts have rated the stock with a Buy rating, five have given a Hold rating and one has given a Sell rating to the stock. Based on data from MarketBeat, the stock has an average rating of “Hold” and a consensus target price of $71.11.

GRAIL Price Performance

Shares of GRAL stock opened at $75.53 on Friday. The company has a market capitalization of $3.37 billion, a PE ratio of -7.75 and a beta of 3.25. The firm’s 50-day moving average is $73.62 and its two-hundred day moving average is $62.86. GRAIL has a 12 month low of $36.98 and a 12 month high of $118.84.

GRAIL (NASDAQ:GRAL) last posted its quarterly earnings results on Wednesday, August 5th. The company reported ($2.56) earnings per share for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of ($2.66) by $0.10. The business had revenue of $44.69 million during the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $42.39 million. GRAIL had a negative net margin of 236.95% and a negative return on equity of 15.88%. Sell-side analysts forecast that GRAIL will post -10.41 EPS for the current year.

Insider Buying and Selling at GRAIL

In other news, CFO Aaron Freidin sold 7,900 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction on Thursday, August 27th. The stock was sold at an average price of $85.01, for a total transaction of $671,579.00. Following the completion of the transaction, the chief financial officer directly owned 253,083 shares in the company, valued at $21,514,585.83. This trade represents a 3.03% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which is available at the SEC website. The transaction was executed under a pre-arranged Rule 10b5-1 trading plan. Also, CEO Joshua Ofman sold 5,000 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction on Thursday, August 27th. The shares were sold at an average price of $85.02, for a total value of $425,100.00. Following the completion of the sale, the chief executive officer owned 397,271 shares in the company, valued at $33,775,980.42. This represents a 1.24% decrease in their position. Additional details regarding this sale are available in the official SEC disclosure. The transaction was executed under a pre-arranged Rule 10b5-1 trading plan. Company insiders own 1.83% of the company’s stock.

Hedge Funds Weigh In On GRAIL

Institutional investors have recently modified their holdings of the business. California State Teachers Retirement System grew its stake in GRAIL by 6,569.8% during the 2nd quarter. California State Teachers Retirement System now owns 2,966,058 shares of the company’s stock worth $202,493,000 after buying an additional 2,921,588 shares during the last quarter. Primecap Management Co. CA purchased a new stake in GRAIL in the second quarter valued at approximately $148,836,000. Bank of America Corp DE purchased a new stake in GRAIL in the second quarter valued at approximately $49,389,000. BlackRock Inc. boosted its holdings in shares of GRAIL by 20.5% in the second quarter. BlackRock Inc. now owns 3,577,075 shares of the company’s stock valued at $244,207,000 after acquiring an additional 608,539 shares during the period. Finally, Baker BROS. Advisors LP boosted its holdings in shares of GRAIL by 27.9% in the fourth quarter. Baker BROS. Advisors LP now owns 2,085,333 shares of the company’s stock valued at $178,484,000 after acquiring an additional 455,208 shares during the period.

About GRAIL

GRAIL, Inc is a healthcare company focused on developing blood-based tests for the early detection of cancer. Its technology uses genomic and epigenomic signals, including patterns of DNA methylation, to identify signals associated with multiple cancer types from a single blood sample.

The company’s primary product is Galleri, a prescription blood test designed to screen for signals of more than 50 types of cancer, including cancers that currently lack recommended screening methods. Galleri is intended to complement, not replace, guideline-recommended cancer screenings, and a positive result requires follow-up diagnostic testing to determine whether cancer is present and where it may be located.

GRAIL was founded in 2016 as a subsidiary of Illumina and became an independent publicly traded company following its separation from Illumina in 2021.