Illumina (NASDAQ:ILMN) Stock Rating Upgraded by UBS Group

Illumina (NASDAQ:ILMN) was upgraded by equities researchers at UBS Group from a “neutral” rating to a “buy” rating in a research note issued to investors on Wednesday, Benzinga reports. The firm presently has a $260.00 target price on the life sciences company’s stock, up from their previous target price of $135.00. UBS Group’s target price indicates a potential upside of 23.19% from the stock’s previous close.

A number of other brokerages have also recently weighed in on ILMN. Stifel Nicolaus boosted their price target on shares of Illumina from $155.00 to $225.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a research report on Friday, July 31st. JPMorgan Chase & Co. raised their target price on shares of Illumina from $220.00 to $230.00 and gave the stock an “overweight” rating in a research report on Friday, July 31st. TD Cowen increased their price target on shares of Illumina from $192.00 to $210.00 and gave the stock a “hold” rating in a research note on Friday, July 31st. Daiwa Securities Group upgraded shares of Illumina from a “neutral” rating to an “outperform” rating and set a $155.00 price objective on the stock in a research note on Thursday, May 14th. Finally, Sanford C. Bernstein reiterated a “market perform” rating and set a $215.00 target price on shares of Illumina in a research note on Friday, July 31st. Ten research analysts have rated the stock with a Buy rating, six have issued a Hold rating and two have issued a Sell rating to the stock. According to MarketBeat.com, the company has a consensus rating of “Hold” and an average target price of $199.12.

Illumina Price Performance

ILMN stock opened at $211.06 on Wednesday. Illumina has a 52-week low of $88.00 and a 52-week high of $231.81. The company has a quick ratio of 1.40, a current ratio of 1.80 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.53. The stock has a market cap of $31.87 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 39.38, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 3.09 and a beta of 1.46. The business has a fifty day moving average of $199.86 and a two-hundred day moving average of $160.68.

Illumina (NASDAQ:ILMN) last posted its quarterly earnings results on Thursday, July 30th. The life sciences company reported $1.31 EPS for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $1.23 by $0.08. Illumina had a net margin of 18.36% and a return on equity of 29.84%. The company had revenue of $1.16 billion during the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $1.13 billion. During the same quarter in the previous year, the business posted $1.19 EPS. The firm’s revenue was up 9.4% on a year-over-year basis. Illumina has set its FY 2026 guidance at 5.300-5.400 EPS. As a group, research analysts anticipate that Illumina will post 5.36 earnings per share for the current year.

Insider Activity

In other Illumina news, Director Keith A. Meister sold 119,501 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Friday, September 4th. The stock was sold at an average price of $218.40, for a total transaction of $26,099,018.40. Following the transaction, the director owned 770,350 shares in the company, valued at approximately $168,244,440. The trade was a 13.43% decrease in their position. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which is accessible through the SEC website. Also, SVP Christensen Wedel sold 1,033 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Tuesday, August 18th. The stock was sold at an average price of $191.52, for a total value of $197,840.16. Following the transaction, the senior vice president owned 14,023 shares in the company, valued at $2,685,684.96. The trade was a 6.86% 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. In the last ninety days, insiders sold 2,062,465 shares of company stock worth $436,589,802. Insiders own 2.90% of the company’s stock.

Institutional Trading of Illumina

A number of institutional investors have recently modified their holdings of ILMN. California State Teachers Retirement System grew its holdings in Illumina by 16,869.5% during the second quarter. California State Teachers Retirement System now owns 40,144,099 shares of the life sciences company’s stock worth $7,058,537,000 after acquiring an additional 39,907,533 shares during the period. BlackRock Inc. acquired a new stake in Illumina in the second quarter valued at $3,374,423,000. Primecap Management Co. CA purchased a new stake in shares of Illumina during the 2nd quarter worth $617,981,000. Jupiter Topco LLC purchased a new stake in shares of Illumina during the 2nd quarter worth $358,652,000. Finally, WCM Investment Management LLC grew its stake in shares of Illumina by 45.5% during the 1st quarter. WCM Investment Management LLC now owns 5,923,173 shares of the life sciences company’s stock worth $715,579,000 after purchasing an additional 1,851,848 shares during the period. 89.42% of the stock is currently owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

About Illumina

Illumina, Inc (NASDAQ: ILMN) is a global life sciences company that develops, manufactures and markets integrated systems for the analysis of genetic variation and function. Headquartered in San Diego, California and founded in 1998, Illumina offers a range of sequencing and array-based technologies used by academic researchers, clinical laboratories, pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies, consumer genomics firms and agricultural researchers to enable discovery, translational research and clinical applications.

The company’s product portfolio includes next-generation sequencing (NGS) platforms and associated consumables, microarrays for genotyping and methylation analysis, library preparation kits and targeted assays.