Saba Capital Management L.P. Grows Stock Holdings in Weibo Corporation $WB

Key Points

• Saba Capital Management increased its Weibo stake by 21% in the first quarter, purchasing 422,294 additional shares to hold 2.44 million shares worth approximately $21.3 million, or 1% of the company.
• Analyst sentiment is mixed: Jefferies maintained a “buy” rating with a $9.80 target, while Zacks downgraded the stock to “strong sell.” Weibo has an overall “hold” rating and an average price target of $11.90.
• Weibo shares opened at $7.81, near the lower end of their 12-month range. Recent quarterly revenue rose 6.1% year over year to $421.3 million, but adjusted EPS of $0.34 missed estimates by $0.02.

Saba Capital Management L.P. boosted its stake in shares of Weibo Corporation (NASDAQ:WB - Free Report) by 21.0% during the first quarter, according to the company in its most recent Form 13F filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission. The firm owned 2,437,357 shares of the information services provider's stock after purchasing an additional 422,294 shares during the period. Weibo comprises 0.6% of Saba Capital Management L.P.'s portfolio, making the stock its 27th largest holding. Saba Capital Management L.P. owned about 1.00% of Weibo worth $21,327,000 as of its most recent filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission.

Several other institutional investors and hedge funds also recently added to or reduced their stakes in WB. WealthCollab LLC raised its stake in Weibo by 50.1% during the 4th quarter. WealthCollab LLC now owns 5,123 shares of the information services provider's stock valued at $52,000 after buying an additional 1,709 shares during the last quarter. Daiwa Securities Group Inc. purchased a new position in shares of Weibo in the 2nd quarter worth $61,000. FourThought Financial Partners LLC bought a new position in Weibo in the fourth quarter valued at about $110,000. AQR Capital Management LLC bought a new position in Weibo in the first quarter valued at about $117,000. Finally, Verition Fund Management LLC purchased a new position in Weibo in the fourth quarter worth about $138,000. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 68.77% of the company's stock.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

Several brokerages have recently weighed in on WB. Jefferies Financial Group reiterated a "buy" rating and issued a $9.80 price objective on shares of Weibo in a research note on Thursday, May 28th. Zacks Research downgraded shares of Weibo from a "hold" rating to a "strong sell" rating in a research report on Tuesday, June 9th. Finally, Weiss Ratings restated a "sell (d+)" rating on shares of Weibo in a research note on Friday. Two research analysts have rated the stock with a Buy rating and two have assigned a Sell rating to the company. Based on data from MarketBeat, Weibo presently has an average rating of "Hold" and an average price target of $11.90.

Weibo Trading Up 1.0%

Shares of NASDAQ:WB opened at $7.81 on Tuesday. The stock has a 50 day moving average of $7.69 and a 200 day moving average of $8.88. The company has a market cap of $1.92 billion, a PE ratio of 5.46, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 4.65 and a beta of 0.21. The company has a current ratio of 3.02, a quick ratio of 3.02 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.48. Weibo Corporation has a 12-month low of $7.09 and a 12-month high of $12.96.

Weibo (NASDAQ:WB - Get Free Report) last released its earnings results on Thursday, May 28th. The information services provider reported $0.34 EPS for the quarter, missing analysts' consensus estimates of $0.36 by ($0.02). Weibo had a return on equity of 9.90% and a net margin of 21.15%.The firm had revenue of $421.33 million for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $416.76 million. During the same quarter in the previous year, the business posted $0.45 EPS. Weibo's revenue was up 6.1% on a year-over-year basis. As a group, equities research analysts expect that Weibo Corporation will post 1.26 EPS for the current year.

Weibo Company Profile

Weibo Corporation operates one of China’s leading social media and microblogging platforms under the brand name Weibo. Launched in August 2009 by Sina Corporation, Weibo enables users to create, share and engage with short-form posts in real time. The platform supports text, images, videos and live streams, and offers features such as trending topics, hashtag campaigns and public discussion forums to facilitate user interaction and content discovery.

Weibo’s product suite extends beyond basic social networking to include digital content services such as live streaming, online games, value-added messaging and e-commerce integrations.

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