QuidelOrtho Co. (NASDAQ:QDEL) Receives Consensus Recommendation of “Moderate Buy” from Brokerages

QuidelOrtho Co. (NASDAQ:QDEL) has earned a consensus recommendation of “Moderate Buy” from the six ratings firms that are covering the company, Marketbeat Ratings reports. Three equities research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and three have given a buy rating to the company. The average 12 month price target among brokerages that have issued ratings on the stock in the last year is $51.20.

Several equities research analysts have recently commented on the stock. Citigroup raised shares of QuidelOrtho from a “neutral” rating to a “buy” rating and upped their price target for the company from $44.00 to $50.00 in a research report on Wednesday, December 11th. UBS Group upped their price target on shares of QuidelOrtho from $43.00 to $45.00 and gave the company a “neutral” rating in a research report on Thursday, February 13th. Royal Bank of Canada reduced their price target on shares of QuidelOrtho from $64.00 to $61.00 and set an “outperform” rating for the company in a research report on Thursday, February 13th. StockNews.com lowered shares of QuidelOrtho from a “buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a research report on Saturday, February 15th. Finally, Jefferies Financial Group assumed coverage on shares of QuidelOrtho in a research report on Tuesday, December 10th. They set a “hold” rating and a $43.00 price target for the company.

Institutional Inflows and Outflows

Hedge funds have recently made changes to their positions in the stock. Cerity Partners LLC bought a new position in shares of QuidelOrtho during the 3rd quarter valued at approximately $605,000. State Street Corp boosted its stake in QuidelOrtho by 16.9% in the 3rd quarter. State Street Corp now owns 1,907,898 shares of the company’s stock worth $87,000,000 after purchasing an additional 275,522 shares during the period. FMR LLC boosted its stake in QuidelOrtho by 28.0% in the 3rd quarter. FMR LLC now owns 1,256,356 shares of the company’s stock worth $57,290,000 after purchasing an additional 274,633 shares during the period. Merit Financial Group LLC bought a new position in QuidelOrtho in the 4th quarter worth approximately $301,000. Finally, Principal Financial Group Inc. boosted its stake in QuidelOrtho by 64.5% in the 3rd quarter. Principal Financial Group Inc. now owns 272,037 shares of the company’s stock worth $12,405,000 after purchasing an additional 106,642 shares during the period. 99.00% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors.

QuidelOrtho Price Performance

Shares of NASDAQ:QDEL opened at $35.93 on Friday. QuidelOrtho has a fifty-two week low of $29.74 and a fifty-two week high of $49.45. The business has a 50-day simple moving average of $40.78 and a two-hundred day simple moving average of $41.70. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.71, a quick ratio of 0.69 and a current ratio of 1.22. The firm has a market cap of $2.42 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of -1.19 and a beta of 0.10.

QuidelOrtho (NASDAQ:QDEL) last issued its earnings results on Wednesday, February 12th. The company reported $0.63 earnings per share for the quarter, missing analysts’ consensus estimates of $1.07 by ($0.44). QuidelOrtho had a positive return on equity of 3.78% and a negative net margin of 72.84%. On average, analysts expect that QuidelOrtho will post 2.3 earnings per share for the current year.

About QuidelOrtho

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.