Qiagen N.V. $QGEN Shares Purchased by Swiss National Bank

Swiss National Bank boosted its holdings in Qiagen N.V. (NYSE:QGEN) by 21.1% during the 1st quarter, Holdings Channel.com reports. The fund owned 716,059 shares of the company’s stock after purchasing an additional 124,920 shares during the quarter. Swiss National Bank’s holdings in Qiagen were worth $28,686,000 at the end of the most recent reporting period.

A number of other institutional investors and hedge funds also recently bought and sold shares of the business. United Services Automobile Association bought a new stake in shares of Qiagen in the 1st quarter worth approximately $239,000. Prudential Financial Inc. grew its position in Qiagen by 74.9% in the second quarter. Prudential Financial Inc. now owns 8,873 shares of the company’s stock worth $426,000 after buying an additional 3,799 shares during the last quarter. Invesco Ltd. grew its position in Qiagen by 123.7% in the second quarter. Invesco Ltd. now owns 1,006,025 shares of the company’s stock worth $48,350,000 after buying an additional 556,387 shares during the last quarter. EverSource Wealth Advisors LLC increased its holdings in shares of Qiagen by 226.4% in the second quarter. EverSource Wealth Advisors LLC now owns 2,598 shares of the company’s stock valued at $125,000 after buying an additional 1,802 shares in the last quarter. Finally, First Trust Advisors LP acquired a new stake in shares of Qiagen during the 2nd quarter valued at $3,639,000. 70.00% of the stock is owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

Several research firms have recently weighed in on QGEN. Stifel Nicolaus set a $36.00 price objective on Qiagen and gave the stock a “hold” rating in a research note on Monday, May 18th. Morgan Stanley raised Qiagen from an “overweight” rating to an “overweight” rating and boosted their target price for the stock from $40.00 to $42.00 in a research report on Tuesday, June 23rd. Deutsche Bank Aktiengesellschaft reaffirmed a “buy” rating and set a $43.00 target price on shares of Qiagen in a report on Thursday, April 30th. Berenberg Bank set a $45.50 price target on Qiagen and gave the stock a “hold” rating in a research note on Tuesday, July 14th. Finally, Zacks Research upgraded Qiagen from a “strong sell” rating to a “hold” rating in a report on Wednesday, April 29th. One analyst has rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, four have assigned a Buy rating, eight have assigned a Hold rating and one has assigned a Sell rating to the company. According to MarketBeat, the company has a consensus rating of “Hold” and a consensus target price of $43.34.

Qiagen Stock Performance

QGEN stock opened at $41.43 on Friday. The firm has a 50 day simple moving average of $37.96 and a 200 day simple moving average of $42.14. Qiagen N.V. has a 52 week low of $32.53 and a 52 week high of $57.81. The stock has a market cap of $8.54 billion, a P/E ratio of 21.64, a P/E/G ratio of 4.05 and a beta of 0.64. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.49, a quick ratio of 2.57 and a current ratio of 3.21.

Qiagen (NYSE:QGEN) last released its quarterly earnings data on Thursday, May 7th. The company reported $0.54 earnings per share for the quarter, meeting the consensus estimate of $0.54. Qiagen had a net margin of 19.16% and a return on equity of 14.40%. The firm had revenue of $492.32 million for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $496.15 million. During the same quarter in the prior year, the business earned $0.56 EPS. Research analysts anticipate that Qiagen N.V. will post 2.43 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Qiagen Increases Dividend

The business also recently declared an annual dividend, which was paid on Tuesday, July 14th. Stockholders of record on Tuesday, July 7th were paid a $0.35 dividend. This represents a dividend yield of 90.0%. This is a boost from Qiagen’s previous annual dividend of $0.26. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Tuesday, July 7th. Qiagen’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is currently 18.32%.

Qiagen Company Profile

Qiagen NV (NYSE: QGEN) is a global provider of sample and assay technologies designed to enable molecular testing in the fields of molecular diagnostics, applied testing, academic research and pharmaceutical development. The company’s solutions span the full workflow of nucleic acid and protein analysis, offering customers standardized kits, instruments and software tools that streamline the preparation, detection and quantification of DNA, RNA and proteins.

The company’s product portfolio includes nucleic acid extraction and purification systems, polymerase chain reaction (PCR) reagents and instrumentation, digital PCR platforms, next-generation sequencing (NGS) library?preparation kits and proteomics solutions.