Canada Pension Plan Investment Board Buys New Position in Guardant Health, Inc. $GH

Canada Pension Plan Investment Board bought a new stake in shares of Guardant Health, Inc. (NASDAQ:GH) in the second quarter, HoldingsChannel reports. The institutional investor bought 173,300 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $26,000,000.

Several other institutional investors have also added to or reduced their stakes in GH. Vanguard Group Inc. increased its stake in shares of Guardant Health by 2.1% in the 4th quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 12,160,768 shares of the company’s stock worth $1,242,101,000 after purchasing an additional 251,939 shares in the last quarter. Price T Rowe Associates Inc. MD raised its holdings in Guardant Health by 33.5% in the 4th quarter. Price T Rowe Associates Inc. MD now owns 5,636,078 shares of the company’s stock worth $575,670,000 after purchasing an additional 1,414,441 shares during the period. Franklin Resources Inc. lifted its position in Guardant Health by 14.9% during the fourth quarter. Franklin Resources Inc. now owns 3,361,547 shares of the company’s stock valued at $343,348,000 after purchasing an additional 435,232 shares in the last quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC lifted its position in Guardant Health by 9.4% during the fourth quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC now owns 3,213,657 shares of the company’s stock valued at $328,297,000 after purchasing an additional 277,001 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Fuller & Thaler Asset Management Inc. grew its holdings in Guardant Health by 3.0% during the fourth quarter. Fuller & Thaler Asset Management Inc. now owns 2,441,730 shares of the company’s stock valued at $249,398,000 after purchasing an additional 72,162 shares during the period. 92.60% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

GH has been the subject of a number of analyst reports. Mizuho upped their price target on Guardant Health from $175.00 to $200.00 and gave the stock an “outperform” rating in a research report on Friday, July 31st. Guggenheim lifted their price objective on Guardant Health from $160.00 to $190.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a research report on Thursday, July 16th. Wolfe Research began coverage on Guardant Health in a research note on Tuesday, June 2nd. They set an “outperform” rating and a $150.00 price objective for the company. BTIG Research boosted their price objective on Guardant Health from $190.00 to $195.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a research note on Friday, July 31st. Finally, UBS Group set a $150.00 target price on shares of Guardant Health in a report on Wednesday, June 24th. One analyst has rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, twenty-three have given a Buy rating and one has assigned a Sell rating to the company’s stock. According to MarketBeat.com, Guardant Health currently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $183.78.

Guardant Health Stock Performance

Shares of Guardant Health stock opened at $161.50 on Friday. The company has a market capitalization of $21.67 billion, a P/E ratio of -46.27 and a beta of 1.60. The company has a fifty day moving average of $157.49 and a 200 day moving average of $120.75. Guardant Health, Inc. has a fifty-two week low of $53.40 and a fifty-two week high of $176.58.

Guardant Health (NASDAQ:GH) last posted its quarterly earnings results on Thursday, July 30th. The company reported ($0.42) EPS for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of ($0.76) by $0.34. The business had revenue of $334.98 million for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $314.23 million. Guardant Health’s revenue was up 44.3% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same period in the prior year, the business earned ($0.44) earnings per share. Analysts forecast that Guardant Health, Inc. will post -2.98 EPS for the current year.

Insider Transactions at Guardant Health

In related news, insider Terilyn J. Monroe sold 46,300 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Wednesday, August 12th. The stock was sold at an average price of $165.12, for a total value of $7,645,056.00. Following the transaction, the insider directly owned 22,979 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $3,794,292.48. The trade was a 66.83% decrease in their position. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is accessible through this link. Also, CEO Helmy Eltoukhy sold 100,000 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Friday, June 5th. The stock was sold at an average price of $126.30, for a total value of $12,630,000.00. Following the completion of the transaction, the chief executive officer directly owned 2,012,919 shares in the company, valued at approximately $254,231,669.70. This represents a 4.73% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale is available in the SEC filing. Over the last 90 days, insiders have sold 548,318 shares of company stock valued at $82,501,873. 5.60% of the stock is owned by corporate insiders.

Guardant Health Company Profile

Guardant Health, Inc is a precision oncology company specializing in blood-based cancer diagnostics. Founded in 2012 and headquartered in Redwood City, California, the company develops non-invasive tests that use circulating tumor DNA (ctDNA) to profile genomic alterations in patients with solid tumors. Guardant Health’s mission is to advance cancer care by providing actionable data to clinicians, pharmaceutical partners and researchers worldwide.

The company’s flagship product, Guardant360, is a next-generation sequencing (NGS) assay designed to detect mutations, copy number variations and select fusions in more than 70 cancer-related genes.