Guardant Health, Inc. $GH Shares Bought by Franklin Resources Inc.

Franklin Resources Inc. lifted its holdings in Guardant Health, Inc. (NASDAQ:GH) by 26.1% during the 3rd quarter, HoldingsChannel.com reports. The firm owned 2,926,315 shares of the company’s stock after acquiring an additional 606,368 shares during the quarter. Franklin Resources Inc.’s holdings in Guardant Health were worth $182,836,000 at the end of the most recent reporting period.

A number of other hedge funds and other institutional investors have also made changes to their positions in GH. Norges Bank acquired a new stake in Guardant Health during the second quarter valued at approximately $64,136,000. Invesco Ltd. boosted its holdings in Guardant Health by 27.3% during the second quarter. Invesco Ltd. now owns 3,558,501 shares of the company’s stock worth $185,184,000 after buying an additional 763,834 shares in the last quarter. Nikko Asset Management Americas Inc. grew its position in Guardant Health by 49.6% in the second quarter. Nikko Asset Management Americas Inc. now owns 2,030,428 shares of the company’s stock worth $105,623,000 after buying an additional 673,438 shares during the last quarter. Allspring Global Investments Holdings LLC bought a new position in shares of Guardant Health in the third quarter valued at $39,523,000. Finally, Federated Hermes Inc. increased its holdings in shares of Guardant Health by 72.4% in the second quarter. Federated Hermes Inc. now owns 1,465,438 shares of the company’s stock valued at $76,261,000 after buying an additional 615,429 shares in the last quarter. 92.60% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors.

Wall Street Analyst Weigh In

GH has been the subject of several research reports. Evercore set a $110.00 price objective on Guardant Health in a research note on Friday, February 20th. Stifel Nicolaus upped their price objective on shares of Guardant Health from $120.00 to $130.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a research note on Friday, February 20th. Piper Sandler raised their target price on shares of Guardant Health from $120.00 to $130.00 and gave the stock an “overweight” rating in a report on Tuesday, February 24th. UBS Group restated a “buy” rating and set a $175.00 price target on shares of Guardant Health in a report on Friday, January 30th. Finally, BTIG Research upped their price target on shares of Guardant Health from $140.00 to $145.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a research report on Friday, February 20th. Twenty-one equities research analysts have rated the stock with a Buy rating, one has assigned a Hold rating and one has assigned a Sell rating to the stock. According to data from MarketBeat, the stock has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $122.57.

Guardant Health Price Performance

Shares of GH opened at $84.02 on Friday. The business’s 50-day moving average is $104.24 and its 200-day moving average is $89.49. The company has a market capitalization of $11.02 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of -25.38 and a beta of 1.67. Guardant Health, Inc. has a fifty-two week low of $36.36 and a fifty-two week high of $120.74.

Guardant Health (NASDAQ:GH) last announced its quarterly earnings data on Thursday, February 19th. The company reported ($0.50) EPS for the quarter, missing analysts’ consensus estimates of ($0.43) by ($0.07). The company had revenue of $281.27 million for the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $269.74 million. The business’s quarterly revenue was up 39.4% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same quarter in the previous year, the firm earned ($0.62) earnings per share. Equities research analysts expect that Guardant Health, Inc. will post -2.9 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Insider Transactions at Guardant Health

In other Guardant Health news, CEO Helmy Eltoukhy sold 90,565 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction dated Monday, December 15th. The stock was sold at an average price of $103.82, for a total value of $9,402,458.30. Following the transaction, the chief executive officer directly owned 2,047,143 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $212,534,386.26. This represents a 4.24% decrease in their position. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which is available at this hyperlink. Also, insider Terilyn J. Monroe sold 8,571 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction dated Wednesday, January 21st. The stock was sold at an average price of $114.09, for a total value of $977,865.39. Following the sale, the insider directly owned 20,990 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $2,394,749.10. This trade represents a 28.99% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale is available in the SEC filing. Insiders have sold a total of 116,034 shares of company stock valued at $12,202,492 in the last three months. 6.10% of the stock is currently owned by insiders.

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.