Cerus (NASDAQ:CERS) Rating Lowered to Hold at Wall Street Zen

Cerus (NASDAQ:CERS) was downgraded by stock analysts at Wall Street Zen from a “buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a research report issued on Saturday, Wall Street Zen reports.

Several other analysts also recently commented on CERS. Weiss Ratings reiterated a “sell (d-)” rating on shares of Cerus in a research report on Monday, September 14th. Freedom Broker started coverage on shares of Cerus in a research report on Thursday, August 20th. They set a “buy” rating and a $6.50 price target on the stock. Three equities research analysts have rated the stock with a Buy rating, one has issued a Hold rating and one has issued a Sell rating to the company’s stock. Based on data from MarketBeat, Cerus presently has an average rating of “Hold” and a consensus price target of $5.25.

Cerus Stock Up 0.9%

NASDAQ CERS opened at $2.33 on Friday. The firm has a market cap of $469.54 million, a PE ratio of -77.67 and a beta of 1.83. Cerus has a 52 week low of $1.38 and a 52 week high of $3.47. The company has a quick ratio of 1.07, a current ratio of 1.83 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.49. The business’s fifty day simple moving average is $2.51 and its 200-day simple moving average is $2.57.

Cerus (NASDAQ:CERS) last released its quarterly earnings results on Thursday, July 30th. The biotechnology company reported ($0.01) earnings per share for the quarter, hitting analysts’ consensus estimates of ($0.01). Cerus had a negative return on equity of 10.19% and a negative net margin of 3.06%. The business had revenue of $63.30 million during the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $62.90 million. As a group, equities analysts anticipate that Cerus will post -0.04 earnings per share for the current year.

Insiders Place Their Bets

In other Cerus news, insider Chrystal Jensen sold 30,000 shares of Cerus stock in a transaction that occurred on Monday, August 17th. The stock was sold at an average price of $2.98, for a total value of $89,400.00. Following the transaction, the insider directly owned 936,657 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $2,791,237.86. The trade was a 3.10% decrease in their position. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which is available at the SEC website. 5.30% of the stock is currently owned by corporate insiders.

Institutional Inflows and Outflows

Several large investors have recently bought and sold shares of CERS. Y Intercept Hong Kong Ltd acquired a new stake in shares of Cerus in the 1st quarter valued at approximately $35,000. Corient Private Wealth LP boosted its holdings in shares of Cerus by 48.6% in the 2nd quarter. Corient Private Wealth LP now owns 15,064 shares of the biotechnology company’s stock valued at $44,000 after purchasing an additional 4,926 shares in the last quarter. Legal & General Group Plc acquired a new stake in shares of Cerus during the 2nd quarter valued at $56,000. Sei Investments Co. boosted its holdings in 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 acquiring an additional 12,536 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Pallas Capital Advisors LLC acquired a new position in shares of Cerus during the second quarter valued at about $67,000. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 78.37% of the company’s stock.

About Cerus

Cerus Corporation is a biomedical products company focused on improving the safety of blood transfusions. Headquartered in Concord, California, the company develops and commercializes technologies designed to reduce the risk of transfusion-transmitted infections and other threats to the blood supply.

Its principal product platform is the INTERCEPT Blood System, which uses pathogen-reduction technology to treat donated blood components. The system is available for platelets and plasma in multiple markets and is designed to inactivate a broad range of viruses, bacteria, parasites and other pathogens.