VNET Group (NASDAQ:VNET) Stock Rating Lowered by Wall Street Zen

Key Points

• VNET Group has been downgraded from a "hold" rating to a "sell" rating by Wall Street Zen following disappointing earnings performance.
• Bank of America has increased VNET Group's target price from $11.80 to $12.60, reaffirming its "buy" rating, despite the stock's current consensus rating being "buy" with an average target price of $9.96.
• The company’s recent earnings report showed a loss per share of ($0.01) and revenue significantly below estimates, indicating ongoing financial challenges.

Wall Street Zen cut shares of VNET Group (NASDAQ:VNET - Free Report) from a hold rating to a sell rating in a research note released on Saturday morning.

Separately, Bank of America boosted their price objective on VNET Group from $11.80 to $12.60 and gave the company a "buy" rating in a research report on Friday, August 22nd. Two equities research analysts have rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating and five have issued a Buy rating to the company. Based on data from MarketBeat, the company has a consensus rating of "Buy" and an average target price of $9.96.

VNET Group Stock Performance

Shares of VNET traded up $0.69 during trading hours on Friday, reaching $8.49. 2,909,934 shares of the company traded hands, compared to its average volume of 7,755,230. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 2.40, a quick ratio of 0.97 and a current ratio of 0.97. The stock's fifty day moving average is $7.64 and its 200 day moving average is $7.81. VNET Group has a 1-year low of $2.25 and a 1-year high of $16.13. The stock has a market cap of $2.28 billion, a P/E ratio of -106.35, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 5.43 and a beta of 0.18.

VNET Group (NASDAQ:VNET - Get Free Report) last released its earnings results on Thursday, August 21st. The information technology services provider reported ($0.01) earnings per share for the quarter, missing analysts' consensus estimates of $0.02 by ($0.03). The firm had revenue of $339.65 million for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $2.27 billion. VNET Group had a return on equity of 0.98% and a net margin of 0.74%. VNET Group has set its FY 2025 guidance at EPS. Equities research analysts anticipate that VNET Group will post -0.06 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

VNET Group declared that its Board of Directors has initiated a stock buyback program on Friday, June 27th that authorizes the company to buyback $0.00 in outstanding shares. This buyback authorization authorizes the information technology services provider to reacquire shares of its stock through open market purchases. Stock buyback programs are generally an indication that the company's leadership believes its shares are undervalued.

Institutional Investors Weigh In On VNET Group

Several hedge funds and other institutional investors have recently made changes to their positions in VNET. EverSource Wealth Advisors LLC raised its holdings in VNET Group by 52.2% during the 2nd quarter. EverSource Wealth Advisors LLC now owns 4,157 shares of the information technology services provider's stock worth $29,000 after purchasing an additional 1,426 shares during the last quarter. Quantbot Technologies LP acquired a new stake in shares of VNET Group during the 1st quarter worth approximately $36,000. FNY Investment Advisers LLC acquired a new stake in shares of VNET Group during the 2nd quarter worth approximately $32,000. Summit Securities Group LLC bought a new stake in shares of VNET Group during the first quarter worth approximately $40,000. Finally, Farther Finance Advisors LLC acquired a new position in VNET Group in the second quarter valued at approximately $34,000. 72.83% of the stock is owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

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.