Traders Buy Large Volume of Call Options on VNET Group (NASDAQ:VNET)

Key Points

• VNET Group experienced a significant increase in options trading, with traders acquiring 9,260 call options, marking a 70% rise over the average volume.
• The company's stock is currently trading at $8.18, with a one-year low of $1.71 and a high of $16.13, alongside a market cap of $2.20 billion and a negative price-to-earnings ratio.
• Analysts have upgraded VNET Group's rating from "sell" to "hold," with a consensus rating of "Buy" and a price target of $9.30, indicating positive sentiment among professionals in the field.

VNET Group, Inc. - Unsponsored ADR (NASDAQ:VNET - Get Free Report) saw some unusual options trading activity on Wednesday. Investors purchased 9,260 call options on the stock. Thisisanincreaseofapproximately70% compared to the typical volume of 5,438 call options.

Institutional Inflows and Outflows

Several hedge funds have recently modified their holdings of the stock. Triata Capital Ltd bought a new position in shares of VNET Group in the 4th quarter worth approximately $47,377,000. Millennium Management LLC raised its holdings in shares of VNET Group by 3.4% in the fourth quarter. Millennium Management LLC now owns 5,578,371 shares of the information technology services provider's stock worth $26,441,000 after buying an additional 181,749 shares during the period. Vanguard Group Inc. grew its stake in VNET Group by 5.3% in the first quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 5,495,446 shares of the information technology services provider's stock worth $45,063,000 after purchasing an additional 278,496 shares in the last quarter. Canada Pension Plan Investment Board purchased a new stake in shares of VNET Group in the 1st quarter worth approximately $27,463,000. Finally, Taikang Asset Management Hong Kong Co Ltd purchased a new position in shares of VNET Group in the 1st quarter worth approximately $27,210,000. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 72.83% of the company's stock.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

Separately, Wall Street Zen raised shares of VNET Group from a "sell" rating to a "hold" rating in a research note on Sunday, July 13th. One analyst has rated the stock with a hold rating, four have issued a buy rating and two have issued a strong buy rating to the company's stock. According to data from MarketBeat.com, the company currently has a consensus rating of "Buy" and an average price target of $9.30.

VNET Group Price Performance

VNET stock traded down $0.87 during trading hours on Friday, hitting $7.44. 4,792,141 shares of the stock traded hands, compared to its average volume of 8,159,014. VNET Group has a one year low of $1.71 and a one year high of $16.13. The stock has a 50-day simple moving average of $6.84 and a 200 day simple moving average of $7.68. The company has a current ratio of 1.10, a quick ratio of 1.10 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 2.34. The company has a market cap of $2.00 billion, a P/E ratio of -745.50, a P/E/G ratio of 1.76 and a beta of 0.14.

VNET Group (NASDAQ:VNET - Get Free Report) last announced its quarterly earnings results on Wednesday, May 28th. The information technology services provider reported ($0.12) earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, missing the consensus estimate of ($0.01) by ($0.11). VNET Group had a return on equity of 2.11% and a net margin of 1.66%. The business had revenue of $309.52 million during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $2.22 billion. During the same quarter last year, the company earned ($0.28) earnings per share. Equities analysts forecast that VNET Group will post -0.06 earnings per share for the current year.

VNET Group announced that its Board of Directors has approved a share buyback plan on Friday, June 27th that permits the company to repurchase $0.00 in shares. This repurchase authorization permits the information technology services provider to buy shares of its stock through open market purchases. Shares repurchase plans are typically a sign that the company's board believes its stock is undervalued.

VNET Group Company Profile

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.