GDS (NASDAQ:GDS) Shares Gap Up - Should You Buy?

GDS Holdings Limited (NASDAQ:GDS - Get Free Report) gapped up prior to trading on Monday . The stock had previously closed at $25.45, but opened at $28.11. GDS shares last traded at $27.81, with a volume of 379,260 shares trading hands.

Wall Street Analyst Weigh In

A number of brokerages recently weighed in on GDS. Citizens Jmp raised shares of GDS to a "strong-buy" rating in a research note on Monday, January 27th. Raymond James raised GDS from an "outperform" rating to a "strong-buy" rating and set a $53.00 price target on the stock in a research note on Thursday, March 20th. JMP Securities set a $40.00 price target on GDS in a report on Thursday, March 20th. Citigroup reiterated an "outperform" rating on shares of GDS in a research note on Thursday, March 20th. Finally, Daiwa Capital Markets raised shares of GDS from a "neutral" rating to a "buy" rating in a research note on Tuesday, February 11th. One equities research analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, one has given a hold rating, five have issued a buy rating and three have given a strong buy rating to the stock. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, the company currently has a consensus rating of "Buy" and a consensus target price of $39.48.

GDS Stock Performance

The stock has a market cap of $5.00 billion, a P/E ratio of -8.61 and a beta of 0.28. The company has a current ratio of 1.19, a quick ratio of 1.19 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 2.25. The company's 50-day simple moving average is $25.82 and its 200 day simple moving average is $25.57.

GDS (NASDAQ:GDS - Get Free Report) last issued its quarterly earnings results on Wednesday, March 19th. The company reported ($0.10) earnings per share for the quarter, topping analysts' consensus estimates of ($0.27) by $0.17. The company had revenue of $425.13 million for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $3.11 billion. GDS had a negative net margin of 35.97% and a negative return on equity of 8.22%. The firm's quarterly revenue was up 9.1% on a year-over-year basis. During the same period in the previous year, the firm earned ($2.16) EPS. As a group, sell-side analysts expect that GDS Holdings Limited will post -0.89 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Institutional Trading of GDS

Several hedge funds and other institutional investors have recently modified their holdings of the business. Alberta Investment Management Corp bought a new position in shares of GDS in the fourth quarter valued at approximately $4,935,000. Y Intercept Hong Kong Ltd raised its position in shares of GDS by 165.5% in the fourth quarter. Y Intercept Hong Kong Ltd now owns 54,127 shares of the company's stock worth $1,286,000 after buying an additional 33,741 shares in the last quarter. Raymond James Financial Inc. bought a new stake in GDS during the fourth quarter valued at $2,373,000. State of New Jersey Common Pension Fund D bought a new position in GDS in the 4th quarter worth about $1,938,000. Finally, American Century Companies Inc. raised its holdings in shares of GDS by 509.6% in the 4th quarter. American Century Companies Inc. now owns 2,323,482 shares of the company's stock valued at $55,206,000 after acquiring an additional 1,942,341 shares in the last quarter. Institutional investors own 33.71% of the company's stock.

GDS Company Profile

GDS Holdings Limited, together with its subsidiaries, develops and operates data centers in the People's Republic of China. The company provides colocation services comprising critical facilities space, customer-available power, racks, and cooling; managed hosting services, including business continuity and disaster recovery, network management, data storage, system security, operating system, database, and server middleware services; managed cloud services; and consulting services.