GDS (NASDAQ:GDS) Shares Down 4.2% – Time to Sell?

GDS Holdings Limited (NASDAQ:GDS) fell 4.2% during mid-day trading on Thursday . The company traded as low as $29.00 and last traded at $29.33. 988,987 shares were traded during mid-day trading, a decline of 48% from the average session volume of 1,917,702 shares. The stock had previously closed at $30.61.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

Several equities analysts recently weighed in on GDS shares. Citizens Jmp raised shares of GDS to a “strong-buy” rating in a research note on Monday, January 27th. StockNews.com cut shares of GDS from a “hold” rating to a “sell” rating in a research note on Friday, February 28th. Jefferies Financial Group raised shares of GDS from a “hold” rating to a “buy” rating and set a $45.00 target price for the company in a research note on Tuesday. Raymond James upgraded shares of GDS from an “outperform” rating to a “strong-buy” rating and set a $53.00 price objective for the company in a research report on Thursday. Finally, Royal Bank of Canada lowered shares of GDS from an “outperform” rating to a “sector perform” rating and raised their target price for the stock from $26.00 to $37.00 in a report on Tuesday, February 25th. One equities research analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, two have issued a hold rating, four have issued a buy rating and three have assigned a strong buy rating to the company. Based on data from MarketBeat, the company currently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average price target of $33.23.

GDS Stock Down 3.3 %

The company has a current ratio of 1.19, a quick ratio of 1.19 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 2.25. The company has a market cap of $5.27 billion, a PE ratio of -9.07 and a beta of 0.06. The company’s 50 day moving average is $31.34 and its 200 day moving average is $24.52.

GDS (NASDAQ:GDS) last posted its earnings results on Wednesday, March 19th. The company reported ($0.10) EPS for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of ($0.27) by $0.17. The business had revenue of $425.13 million for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $3.11 billion. GDS had a negative net margin of 35.97% and a negative return on equity of 8.22%. The company’s revenue for the quarter was up 9.1% on a year-over-year basis. During the same quarter last year, the firm posted ($2.16) EPS. As a group, analysts predict that GDS Holdings Limited will post -0.89 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Institutional Inflows and Outflows

A number of institutional investors and hedge funds have recently modified their holdings of the company. PNC Financial Services Group Inc. grew its position in shares of GDS by 26.8% in the 4th quarter. PNC Financial Services Group Inc. now owns 3,177 shares of the company’s stock worth $75,000 after buying an additional 672 shares during the last quarter. BNP Paribas Financial Markets grew its position in shares of GDS by 1.4% in the 3rd quarter. BNP Paribas Financial Markets now owns 182,388 shares of the company’s stock worth $3,721,000 after buying an additional 2,543 shares during the last quarter. Blue Trust Inc. grew its position in shares of GDS by 121.9% in the 4th quarter. Blue Trust Inc. now owns 5,557 shares of the company’s stock worth $132,000 after buying an additional 3,053 shares during the last quarter. Public Employees Retirement System of Ohio acquired a new stake in GDS in the 3rd quarter worth approximately $64,000. Finally, Invesco Ltd. lifted its stake in GDS by 4.1% during the 4th quarter. Invesco Ltd. now owns 88,423 shares of the company’s stock valued at $2,101,000 after acquiring an additional 3,481 shares during the period. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 33.71% of the company’s stock.

GDS Company Profile

GDS Holdings Limited, together with its subsidiaries, develops and operates data centers in the People's Republic of China. The company provides colocation services comprising critical facilities space, customer-available power, racks, and cooling; managed hosting services, including business continuity and disaster recovery, network management, data storage, system security, operating system, database, and server middleware services; managed cloud services; and consulting services.