VNET Group (NASDAQ:VNET) Shares Gap Down – What’s Next?

Shares of VNET Group, Inc. (NASDAQ:VNET) gapped down before the market opened on Friday . The stock had previously closed at $9.01, but opened at $8.76. VNET Group shares last traded at $7.88, with a volume of 1,207,585 shares changing hands.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

A number of equities research analysts have commented on the company. Citigroup increased their price target on VNET Group from $16.10 to $20.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a research note on Friday, March 14th. UBS Group upped their target price on VNET Group from $6.40 to $7.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a research report on Friday, November 29th. The Goldman Sachs Group raised VNET Group from a “neutral” rating to a “buy” rating and lifted their price target for the stock from $3.10 to $5.00 in a research report on Friday, November 29th. Nomura Securities raised VNET Group to a “strong-buy” rating in a report on Friday, February 21st. Finally, StockNews.com downgraded VNET Group from a “hold” rating to a “sell” rating in a report on Friday, March 14th. One research analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, four have issued a buy rating and two have issued a strong buy rating to the company. According to data from MarketBeat, the stock presently has a consensus rating of “Buy” and a consensus price target of $9.30.

VNET Group Price Performance

The stock’s 50 day simple moving average is $9.94 and its two-hundred day simple moving average is $6.00. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.46, a quick ratio of 0.83 and a current ratio of 0.83. The firm has a market capitalization of $2.12 billion, a PE ratio of -3.73, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 1.01 and a beta of 0.07.

VNET Group (NASDAQ:VNET) last announced its quarterly earnings results on Wednesday, March 12th. The information technology services provider reported ($0.01) earnings per share for the quarter, missing analysts’ consensus estimates of $0.03 by ($0.04). VNET Group had a negative net margin of 28.54% and a negative return on equity of 5.68%. The company had revenue of $307.75 million for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $284.88 million. On average, sell-side analysts forecast that VNET Group, Inc. will post -0.06 EPS for the current year.

Institutional Investors Weigh In On VNET Group

Hedge funds and other institutional investors have recently made changes to their positions in the business. Triata Capital Ltd purchased a new position in shares of VNET Group in the 4th quarter valued at $47,377,000. D. E. Shaw & Co. Inc. purchased a new position in shares of VNET Group during the fourth quarter worth about $7,183,000. Man Group plc acquired a new stake in shares of VNET Group during the fourth quarter worth about $5,094,000. Bank of America Corp DE lifted its holdings in shares of VNET Group by 610.2% in the 4th quarter. Bank of America Corp DE now owns 1,198,750 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $5,682,000 after purchasing an additional 1,029,963 shares during the last quarter. Finally, JPMorgan Chase & Co. boosted its position in shares of VNET Group by 622.8% in the 4th quarter. JPMorgan Chase & Co. now owns 989,402 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $4,690,000 after purchasing an additional 852,519 shares during the period. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 72.83% of the company’s stock.

VNET Group Company Profile

VNET Group, Inc, an investment holding company, provides hosting and related services in China. It offers managed hosting services consisting of managed retail services, such as colocation services that dedicate data center space to house customers' servers and networking equipment, as well as allow customers to lease partial or entire cabinets for their servers; interconnectivity services that allow customers to connect their servers; value-added services, including hybrid IT, bare metal, firewall, server load balancing, data backup and recovery, data center management, server management, and backup server services; cloud services that allow customers to run applications over the internet using IT infrastructure; and VPN Services that extend customers' private networks by setting up connections through the public internet.