VNET Group (NASDAQ:VNET) Shares Gap Down on Disappointing Earnings

VNET Group, Inc. (NASDAQ:VNET - Get Free Report) gapped down before the market opened on Wednesday following a weaker than expected earnings announcement. The stock had previously closed at $6.04, but opened at $5.62. VNET Group shares last traded at $5.64, with a volume of 2,552,246 shares changing hands.

The information technology services provider reported ($0.12) EPS for the quarter, missing analysts' consensus estimates of ($0.01) by ($0.11). VNET Group had a negative return on equity of 5.68% and a negative net margin of 28.54%. The company had revenue of $309.52 million during the quarter, compared to analysts' expectations of $2.22 billion. During the same period in the prior year, the firm earned ($0.28) EPS.

Analyst Ratings Changes

VNET has been the subject of a number of research reports. Wall Street Zen cut shares of VNET Group from a "hold" rating to a "sell" rating in a research note on Tuesday, May 6th. Nomura Securities raised shares of VNET Group to a "strong-buy" rating in a research note on Friday, February 21st. Finally, Citigroup boosted their price target on shares of VNET Group from $16.10 to $20.00 and gave the stock a "buy" rating in a research note on Friday, March 14th. One equities research analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, four have given a buy rating and two have assigned a strong buy rating to the stock. According to data from MarketBeat, the company has an average rating of "Buy" and a consensus target price of $9.30.

Institutional Investors Weigh In On VNET Group

A number of institutional investors have recently made changes to their positions in VNET. Barclays PLC boosted its stake in shares of VNET Group by 229.3% in the 4th quarter. Barclays PLC now owns 7,093 shares of the information technology services provider's stock valued at $34,000 after purchasing an additional 4,939 shares in the last quarter. Quantbot Technologies LP purchased a new stake in shares of VNET Group in the 1st quarter valued at $36,000. Summit Securities Group LLC purchased a new stake in shares of VNET Group in the 1st quarter valued at $40,000. Point72 Asia Singapore Pte. Ltd. purchased a new stake in shares of VNET Group in the 4th quarter valued at $41,000. Finally, Catalina Capital Group LLC purchased a new stake in shares of VNET Group in the 4th quarter valued at $54,000. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 72.83% of the company's stock.

VNET Group Stock Down 2.2%

The firm has a market cap of $1.44 billion, a PE ratio of -2.41, a PEG ratio of 1.01 and a beta of 0.14. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.46, a quick ratio of 0.83 and a current ratio of 0.83. The company's 50-day simple moving average is $6.22 and its two-hundred day simple moving average is $6.86.

About VNET Group

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.