VNET Group (NASDAQ:VNET) Shares Gap Up Following Analyst Upgrade

Shares of VNET Group, Inc. (NASDAQ:VNET) gapped up before the market opened on Friday after The Goldman Sachs Group upgraded the stock from a neutral rating to a buy rating. The stock had previously closed at $3.86, but opened at $4.04. The Goldman Sachs Group now has a $5.00 price target on the stock, up from their previous price target of $3.10. VNET Group shares last traded at $4.05, with a volume of 556,042 shares traded.

A number of other analysts have also recently weighed in on the company. Hsbc Global Res upgraded VNET Group to a “strong-buy” rating in a research note on Wednesday, October 9th. StockNews.com upgraded VNET Group from a “sell” rating to a “hold” rating in a research note on Wednesday, August 21st. HSBC upgraded shares of 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. Citigroup began coverage on shares of VNET Group in a research report on Wednesday, September 4th. They set a “buy” rating and a $4.00 price objective for the company. Finally, UBS Group increased their target price on shares of VNET Group from $6.40 to $7.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a research report on Friday. One analyst has rated the stock with a hold rating, five have given a buy rating and one has given a strong buy rating to the company’s stock. According to MarketBeat.com, the company presently has an average rating of “Buy” and an average target price of $4.78.

Institutional Investors Weigh In On VNET Group

Several large investors have recently modified their holdings of VNET. Millennium Management LLC increased its stake in VNET Group by 89.1% in the second quarter. Millennium Management LLC now owns 2,973,358 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $6,229,000 after purchasing an additional 1,400,683 shares during the period. Anson Funds Management LP increased its position in VNET Group by 84.9% in the 3rd quarter. Anson Funds Management LP now owns 450,000 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $1,836,000 after acquiring an additional 206,580 shares during the period. GSA Capital Partners LLP raised its stake in VNET Group by 24.8% during the 3rd quarter. GSA Capital Partners LLP now owns 369,231 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $1,506,000 after acquiring an additional 73,311 shares during the last quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC lifted its position in VNET Group by 237.7% during the 3rd quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC now owns 298,539 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $1,218,000 after acquiring an additional 210,124 shares during the period. Finally, Inspire Investing LLC purchased a new position in shares of VNET Group in the 3rd quarter valued at approximately $1,092,000. 72.83% of the stock is owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

VNET Group Stock Performance

The company has a quick ratio of 0.83, a current ratio of 0.83 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.46. The stock has a fifty day moving average price of $3.68 and a 200-day moving average price of $2.71. The firm has a market cap of $1.03 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of -1.74 and a beta of -0.27.

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

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.