Investors Buy Large Volume of Illumina Call Options (NASDAQ:ILMN)

Illumina, Inc. (NASDAQ:ILMN) saw unusually large options trading activity on Monday. Stock investors bought 7,176 call options on the stock. This represents an increase of approximately 107% compared to the average daily volume of 3,471 call options.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

A number of research analysts recently issued reports on the stock. Canaccord Genuity Group decreased their price objective on shares of Illumina from $92.00 to $87.00 and set a “hold” rating for the company in a report on Monday. Stephens restated an “overweight” rating and set a $156.00 price objective on shares of Illumina in a report on Tuesday, March 11th. Piper Sandler boosted their price objective on shares of Illumina from $185.00 to $190.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a report on Monday, February 10th. Citigroup decreased their price objective on shares of Illumina from $90.00 to $85.00 and set a “neutral” rating for the company in a report on Monday, April 7th. Finally, JPMorgan Chase & Co. decreased their price objective on shares of Illumina from $120.00 to $85.00 and set a “neutral” rating for the company in a report on Friday. One analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, ten have assigned a hold rating, ten have issued a buy rating and one has issued a strong buy rating to the stock. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, the company presently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $132.75.

Hedge Funds Weigh In On Illumina

Institutional investors have recently added to or reduced their stakes in the company. Bank of Stockton grew its stake in Illumina by 3.8% in the fourth quarter. Bank of Stockton now owns 2,162 shares of the life sciences company’s stock worth $289,000 after purchasing an additional 80 shares during the period. Stephens Inc. AR grew its stake in Illumina by 1.4% in the fourth quarter. Stephens Inc. AR now owns 6,623 shares of the life sciences company’s stock worth $885,000 after purchasing an additional 90 shares during the period. Spire Wealth Management grew its stake in Illumina by 26.0% in the fourth quarter. Spire Wealth Management now owns 470 shares of the life sciences company’s stock worth $63,000 after purchasing an additional 97 shares during the period. IFP Advisors Inc grew its stake in shares of Illumina by 19.1% in the fourth quarter. IFP Advisors Inc now owns 617 shares of the life sciences company’s stock worth $82,000 after acquiring an additional 99 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Freedom Investment Management Inc. grew its stake in shares of Illumina by 3.7% in the fourth quarter. Freedom Investment Management Inc. now owns 2,856 shares of the life sciences company’s stock worth $382,000 after acquiring an additional 101 shares during the last quarter. 89.42% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

Illumina Stock Up 4.9%

ILMN traded up $3.75 during trading on Monday, reaching $79.51. 966,871 shares of the stock were exchanged, compared to its average volume of 2,282,543. The stock has a market cap of $12.58 billion, a P/E ratio of -10.39, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 1.60 and a beta of 1.35. Illumina has a twelve month low of $68.70 and a twelve month high of $156.66. The stock’s 50 day moving average price is $78.94 and its two-hundred day moving average price is $113.12. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.63, a quick ratio of 1.42 and a current ratio of 1.77.

Illumina (NASDAQ:ILMN) last issued its earnings results on Thursday, May 8th. The life sciences company reported $0.97 earnings per share for the quarter, topping analysts’ consensus estimates of $0.96 by $0.01. The business had revenue of $1.04 billion for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $1.03 billion. Illumina had a negative net margin of 27.95% and a positive return on equity of 13.37%. The firm’s revenue for the quarter was down 1.4% on a year-over-year basis. During the same period in the previous year, the company earned $0.98 earnings per share. Equities analysts expect that Illumina will post 4.51 EPS for the current year.

About Illumina

Illumina, Inc offers sequencing- and array-based solutions for genetic and genomic analysis in the United States, Singapore, the United Kingdom, and internationally. It operates through Core Illumina and GRAIL segments. The company offers sequencing and array-based instruments and consumables, which include reagents, flow cells, and library preparation; whole-genome sequencing kits, which sequence entire genomes of various size and complexity; and targeted resequencing kits, which sequence exomes, specific genes, and RNA or other genomic regions of interest.