Insider Selling: Cerus (NASDAQ:CERS) COO Sells $50,001.00 in Stock

Cerus Corporation (NASDAQ:CERS) COO Vivek Jayaraman sold 16,667 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction dated Friday, May 29th. The stock was sold at an average price of $3.00, for a total transaction of $50,001.00. Following the sale, the chief operating officer owned 1,656,707 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $4,970,121. The trade was a 1.00% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which is available through this hyperlink.

Cerus Price Performance

Cerus stock opened at $2.79 on Friday. Cerus Corporation has a 12-month low of $1.15 and a 12-month high of $3.15. The stock has a market cap of $559.03 million, a P/E ratio of -55.80 and a beta of 1.77. The company has a 50-day moving average price of $2.26 and a 200 day moving average price of $2.16. The company has a current ratio of 1.63, a quick ratio of 1.06 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.47.

Cerus (NASDAQ:CERS) last announced its quarterly earnings results on Thursday, April 30th. The biotechnology company reported ($0.01) earnings per share for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of ($0.03) by $0.02. Cerus had a negative net margin of 4.41% and a negative return on equity of 15.18%. The business had revenue of $59.89 million during the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $55.68 million. Sell-side analysts anticipate that Cerus Corporation will post -0.02 earnings per share for the current year.

Institutional Inflows and Outflows

Several hedge funds and other institutional investors have recently made changes to their positions in the business. Bank of America Corp DE boosted its stake in shares of Cerus by 3.3% in the first quarter. Bank of America Corp DE now owns 1,218,330 shares of the biotechnology company’s stock valued at $2,217,000 after purchasing an additional 39,310 shares during the period. Senvest Management LLC boosted its stake in shares of Cerus by 3.8% in the first quarter. Senvest Management LLC now owns 4,114,061 shares of the biotechnology company’s stock valued at $7,488,000 after purchasing an additional 148,812 shares during the period. Renaissance Technologies LLC boosted its stake in shares of Cerus by 16.2% in the first quarter. Renaissance Technologies LLC now owns 578,900 shares of the biotechnology company’s stock valued at $1,054,000 after purchasing an additional 80,900 shares during the period. Sei Investments Co. boosted its stake in shares of Cerus by 56.6% in the first quarter. Sei Investments Co. now owns 34,676 shares of the biotechnology company’s stock valued at $63,000 after purchasing an additional 12,536 shares during the period. Finally, State of Wyoming purchased a new position in shares of Cerus in the first quarter valued at approximately $206,000. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 78.37% of the company’s stock.

Wall Street Analyst Weigh In

A number of brokerages have weighed in on CERS. BTIG Research upgraded shares of Cerus from a “neutral” rating to a “buy” rating and set a $4.00 price target for the company in a research report on Friday, May 1st. Zacks Research upgraded shares of Cerus from a “strong sell” rating to a “hold” rating in a research report on Thursday, April 30th. Wall Street Zen upgraded shares of Cerus from a “hold” rating to a “buy” rating in a research report on Saturday, May 2nd. Finally, Weiss Ratings reiterated a “sell (d-)” rating on shares of Cerus in a research report on Wednesday, March 25th. Two analysts have rated the stock with a Buy rating, one has issued a Hold rating and one has assigned a Sell rating to the company. According to MarketBeat, Cerus currently has a consensus rating of “Hold” and an average target price of $4.00.

About Cerus

Cerus Corporation is a biomedical products company dedicated to enhancing the safety of blood transfusions worldwide. Its flagship offering, the INTERCEPT Blood System, employs pathogen reduction technology designed to inactivate a broad spectrum of viruses, bacteria, and parasites in donated platelets and plasma. This approach aims to mitigate the risk of transfusion-transmitted infections and improve blood component safety for patients.

The INTERCEPT platform integrates seamlessly into existing blood center workflows, providing a one-step treatment process for collected blood products.