VNET Group (NASDAQ:VNET) Shares Gap Up - Still a Buy?

VNET Group, Inc. - Unsponsored ADR (NASDAQ:VNET - Get Free Report)'s stock price gapped up prior to trading on Friday . The stock had previously closed at $5.91, but opened at $6.18. VNET Group shares last traded at $6.30, with a volume of 4,401,295 shares trading hands.

Wall Street Analyst Weigh In

VNET has been the subject of a number of analyst reports. Citigroup lifted their price objective on shares of VNET Group from $16.10 to $20.00 and gave the company a "buy" rating in a report on Friday, March 14th. Wall Street Zen upgraded shares of VNET Group from a "sell" rating to a "hold" rating in a research note on Sunday, June 15th. One equities research analyst has rated the stock with a hold rating, four have assigned a buy rating and two have assigned a strong buy rating to the company. Based on data from MarketBeat, the company has an average rating of "Buy" and a consensus price target of $9.30.

VNET Group Stock Performance

The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 2.34, a current ratio of 1.10 and a quick ratio of 1.10. The stock has a market cap of $1.86 billion, a P/E ratio of -690.00, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 1.31 and a beta of 0.09. The company has a 50 day simple moving average of $5.92 and a 200-day simple moving average of $7.15.

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) EPS for the quarter, missing analysts' consensus estimates of ($0.01) by ($0.11). VNET Group had a return on equity of 2.11% and a net margin of 1.66%. The company had revenue of $309.52 million during the quarter, compared to analysts' expectations of $2.22 billion. During the same period last year, the firm earned ($0.28) earnings per share. On average, equities analysts expect that VNET Group, Inc. - Unsponsored ADR will post -0.06 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

VNET Group declared that its board has initiated a stock buyback plan on Friday, June 27th that allows the company to buyback $0.00 in shares. This buyback authorization allows the information technology services provider to purchase shares of its stock through open market purchases. Stock buyback plans are typically a sign that the company's board believes its shares are undervalued.

Institutional Trading of VNET Group

Several hedge funds and other institutional investors have recently made changes to their positions in the stock. Barclays PLC boosted its holdings in VNET Group by 229.3% in the fourth quarter. Barclays PLC now owns 7,093 shares of the information technology services provider's stock worth $34,000 after acquiring an additional 4,939 shares in the last quarter. Quantbot Technologies LP bought a new stake in VNET Group during the 1st quarter valued at about $36,000. Summit Securities Group LLC purchased a new position in VNET Group in the first quarter worth about $40,000. Point72 Asia Singapore Pte. Ltd. bought a new position in shares of VNET Group in the fourth quarter worth approximately $41,000. Finally, Hsbc Holdings PLC bought a new position in shares of VNET Group in the fourth quarter worth approximately $66,000. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 72.83% of the company's stock.

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.