VNET Group (NASDAQ:VNET) Shares Gap Down – Here’s Why

Shares of VNET Group, Inc. (NASDAQ:VNET) gapped down prior to trading on Wednesday . The stock had previously closed at $10.94, but opened at $10.30. VNET Group shares last traded at $10.11, with a volume of 2,621,366 shares traded.

Wall Street Analyst Weigh In

A number of research analysts have issued reports on VNET shares. UBS Group raised their price target on shares of VNET Group from $6.40 to $7.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a report on Friday, November 29th. The Goldman Sachs Group upgraded VNET Group from a “neutral” rating to a “buy” rating and raised their target price for the stock from $3.10 to $5.00 in a research note on Friday, November 29th. StockNews.com cut VNET Group from a “hold” rating to a “sell” rating in a research report on Friday, March 14th. Nomura Securities raised VNET Group to a “strong-buy” rating in a report on Friday, February 21st. Finally, Citigroup raised their price objective on VNET Group from $16.10 to $20.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a research note on Friday, March 14th. One equities research analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, five have issued a buy rating and two have issued a strong buy rating to the stock. According to MarketBeat, VNET Group presently has an average rating of “Buy” and an average price target of $7.98.

VNET Group Price Performance

The company has a market capitalization of $2.56 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of -4.48, a P/E/G ratio of 1.01 and a beta of 0.07. The firm has a 50-day simple moving average of $9.46 and a two-hundred day simple moving average of $5.74. The company has a current ratio of 0.83, a quick ratio of 0.83 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.46.

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 the consensus estimate 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 analysts’ expectations of $284.88 million. As a group, analysts predict that VNET Group, Inc. will post -0.06 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Institutional Trading of VNET Group

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

About VNET Group

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.