Rakuten (OTCMKTS:RKUNY) Shares Gap Up - Still a Buy?

Key Points

• Shares of Rakuten gapped up premarket, opening at $5.43 versus a prior close of $5.04 and last trading at $5.37 on a volume of 5,685 shares.
• Analyst sentiment is mixed: Zacks recently downgraded Rakuten to a strong sell, but MarketBeat shows two Strong Buy and one Sell, giving a consensus Buy rating.
• In the latest quarter Rakuten missed EPS estimates (loss of $0.08 vs. -$0.04) but beat revenue ($4.61B vs. $4.15B); the company remains unprofitable with a negative net margin (-7.13%), negative ROE (-14.73%) and high leverage (debt/equity 4.11).

Rakuten, Inc. (OTCMKTS:RKUNY - Get Free Report)'s stock price gapped up prior to trading on Friday . The stock had previously closed at $5.04, but opened at $5.43. Rakuten shares last traded at $5.37, with a volume of 5,685 shares trading hands.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

Separately, Zacks Research downgraded shares of Rakuten from a "hold" rating to a "strong sell" rating in a research report on Wednesday, March 4th. Two research analysts have rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating and one has issued a Sell rating to the company. Based on data from MarketBeat, Rakuten presently has a consensus rating of "Buy".

Rakuten Stock Up 2.9%

The business's 50 day simple moving average is $5.14 and its 200-day simple moving average is $5.87. The company has a market cap of $11.73 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of -10.00 and a beta of 1.20. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 4.11, a quick ratio of 1.16 and a current ratio of 1.16.

Rakuten (OTCMKTS:RKUNY - Get Free Report) last released its quarterly earnings results on Thursday, February 12th. The company reported ($0.08) earnings per share for the quarter, missing analysts' consensus estimates of ($0.04) by ($0.04). The business had revenue of $4.61 billion for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $4.15 billion. Rakuten had a negative net margin of 7.13% and a negative return on equity of 14.73%. Sell-side analysts expect that Rakuten, Inc. will post 0.06 earnings per share for the current year.

About Rakuten

Rakuten, Inc is a diversified internet services company based in Tokyo, Japan, and founded in 1997 by Hiroshi Mikitani, who continues to serve as chairman and chief executive officer. Originally established as an online marketplace, Rakuten has expanded its reach to become a global technology group offering a wide range of digital services and consumer-facing platforms. The company is listed in Japan but its American depositary receipts trade over the counter under the symbol RKUNY.

At the core of Rakuten's business is its e-commerce marketplace, Rakuten Ichiba, which hosts millions of merchants and serves tens of millions of customers across Japan and other key markets.

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