VNET Group, Inc. (NASDAQ:VNET) Sees Large Increase in Short Interest

VNET Group, Inc. (NASDAQ:VNET) was the target of a large increase in short interest during the month of November. As of November 15th, there was short interest totalling 6,060,000 shares, an increase of 31.2% from the October 31st total of 4,620,000 shares. Based on an average trading volume of 2,020,000 shares, the short-interest ratio is currently 3.0 days.

VNET Group Trading Up 0.5 %

Shares of NASDAQ:VNET traded up $0.02 during mid-day trading on Friday, reaching $3.88. 1,506,929 shares of the company’s stock were exchanged, compared to its average volume of 1,572,443. The firm has a market capitalization of $998.71 million, a price-to-earnings ratio of -1.74 and a beta of -0.27. The business’s fifty day moving average price is $3.68 and its 200-day moving average price is $2.71. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.46, a quick ratio of 0.83 and a current ratio of 0.83. VNET Group has a twelve month low of $1.39 and a twelve month high of $4.50.

VNET Group (NASDAQ:VNET) last announced its quarterly earnings results on Tuesday, August 27th. The information technology services provider reported $0.06 earnings per share for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $0.01 by $0.05. VNET Group had a negative net margin of 28.54% and a negative return on equity of 5.68%. The business had revenue of $274.35 million for the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $266.56 million. On average, research analysts predict that VNET Group will post -0.01 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Institutional Trading of VNET Group

A number of hedge funds and other institutional investors have recently made changes to their positions in VNET. Ballentine Partners LLC bought a new stake in VNET Group in the 2nd quarter worth approximately $36,000. Wolverine Trading LLC bought a new position in VNET Group during the 3rd quarter valued at approximately $46,000. AXA S.A. purchased a new stake in VNET Group in the second quarter worth $65,000. Walleye Capital LLC purchased a new stake in shares of VNET Group in the 3rd quarter worth about $115,000. Finally, Blue Trust Inc. raised its position in shares of VNET Group by 785.4% in the 3rd quarter. Blue Trust Inc. now owns 42,074 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $172,000 after acquiring an additional 37,322 shares in the last quarter. 72.83% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

Several research firms recently weighed in on VNET. StockNews.com upgraded shares of VNET Group from a “sell” rating to a “hold” rating in a research note on Wednesday, August 21st. The Goldman Sachs Group raised VNET Group from a “neutral” rating to a “buy” rating and lifted their target price for the company from $3.10 to $5.00 in a research note on Friday. HSBC raised VNET Group from a “hold” rating to a “buy” rating and set a $5.20 price target on the stock in a research note on Wednesday, October 9th. UBS Group increased their target price on shares of VNET Group from $6.40 to $7.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a report on Friday. Finally, Citigroup started coverage on shares of VNET Group in a report on Wednesday, September 4th. They set a “buy” rating and a $4.00 target price on the stock. One research analyst has rated the stock with a hold rating, five have given a buy rating and one has issued a strong buy rating to the company’s stock. Based on data from MarketBeat, the stock presently has a consensus rating of “Buy” and a consensus price target of $4.78.

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.