QuidelOrtho (NASDAQ:QDEL) Raised to Buy at Craig Hallum

Craig Hallum upgraded shares of QuidelOrtho (NASDAQ:QDEL) from a hold rating to a buy rating in a report issued on Thursday, Marketbeat Ratings reports. The brokerage currently has $57.00 price target on the stock, up from their previous price target of $40.00.

Separately, Royal Bank of Canada reissued an outperform rating and set a $61.00 target price on shares of QuidelOrtho in a research note on Friday, August 16th. Two analysts have rated the stock with a sell rating, three have given a hold rating and three have issued a buy rating to the company. According to MarketBeat, the company currently has a consensus rating of Hold and a consensus target price of $57.50.

QuidelOrtho Stock Performance

Shares of NASDAQ:QDEL opened at $43.45 on Thursday. QuidelOrtho has a 1 year low of $29.74 and a 1 year high of $77.86. The stock has a market capitalization of $2.91 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of -1.65 and a beta of 0.08. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.70, a current ratio of 1.44 and a quick ratio of 0.79. The company’s 50 day simple moving average is $38.79 and its 200 day simple moving average is $41.31.

QuidelOrtho (NASDAQ:QDEL) last issued its quarterly earnings results on Wednesday, July 31st. The company reported ($0.07) earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of ($0.22) by $0.15. QuidelOrtho had a positive return on equity of 3.87% and a negative net margin of 65.60%. The company had revenue of $637.00 million for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $613.51 million. During the same quarter last year, the company posted $0.26 EPS. The company’s revenue for the quarter was down 4.2% compared to the same quarter last year. As a group, research analysts predict that QuidelOrtho will post 1.77 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Insider Buying and Selling

In other QuidelOrtho news, major shareholder Carlyle Group Inc. sold 24,390 shares of the stock in a transaction dated Wednesday, July 10th. The stock was sold at an average price of $30.09, for a total value of $733,895.10. Following the completion of the transaction, the insider now directly owns 11,141,580 shares in the company, valued at $335,250,142.20. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available through the SEC website. Insiders have sold 2,261,559 shares of company stock worth $82,700,460 in the last 90 days. Insiders own 1.00% of the company’s stock.

Hedge Funds Weigh In On QuidelOrtho

A number of hedge funds have recently modified their holdings of QDEL. Rubric Capital Management LP raised its position in QuidelOrtho by 51.9% during the 2nd quarter. Rubric Capital Management LP now owns 3,645,590 shares of the company’s stock worth $121,106,000 after purchasing an additional 1,245,590 shares during the last quarter. Norges Bank acquired a new position in shares of QuidelOrtho in the fourth quarter worth approximately $41,968,000. Dimensional Fund Advisors LP boosted its holdings in QuidelOrtho by 144.2% in the fourth quarter. Dimensional Fund Advisors LP now owns 908,554 shares of the company’s stock valued at $66,961,000 after acquiring an additional 536,492 shares during the last quarter. Invenomic Capital Management LP acquired a new stake in QuidelOrtho during the 4th quarter valued at approximately $37,144,000. Finally, Maverick Capital Ltd. raised its holdings in QuidelOrtho by 27.5% during the 2nd quarter. Maverick Capital Ltd. now owns 1,728,913 shares of the company’s stock worth $57,434,000 after purchasing an additional 372,662 shares during the last quarter. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 99.00% of the company’s stock.

QuidelOrtho Company Profile

QuidelOrtho Corporation provides diagnostic testing solutions. The company operates through Labs, Transfusion Medicine, Point-of-Care, and Molecular Diagnostics business units. The Labs business unit provides clinical chemistry laboratory instruments and tests that measure target chemicals in bodily fluids for the evaluation of health and the clinical management of patients; immunoassay laboratory instruments and tests, which measure proteins as they act as antigens in the spread of disease, antibodies in the immune response spurred by disease, or markers of proper organ function and health; testing products to detect and monitor disease progression across a spectrum of therapeutic areas; and specialized diagnostic solutions.