VNET Group (NASDAQ:VNET) Shares Gap Up - Here's Why

VNET Group, Inc. (NASDAQ:VNET - Get Free Report)'s stock price gapped up before the market opened on Thursday . The stock had previously closed at $5.82, but opened at $6.15. VNET Group shares last traded at $5.80, with a volume of 1,560,844 shares traded.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

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

VNET Group Stock Performance

The firm has a market cap of $1.59 billion, a PE ratio of -2.66, a P/E/G ratio of 1.01 and a beta of 0.09. The firm has a 50-day moving average price of $5.95 and a two-hundred day moving average price of $6.94. The company has a quick ratio of 0.83, a current ratio of 0.83 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.46.

VNET Group (NASDAQ:VNET - Get Free Report) last announced its quarterly earnings data 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 negative net margin of 28.54% and a negative return on equity of 5.68%. The business had revenue of $309.52 million for the quarter, compared to analysts' expectations of $2.22 billion. During the same period in the prior year, the company posted ($0.28) EPS. Research analysts forecast that VNET Group, Inc. will post -0.06 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Institutional Investors Weigh In On VNET Group

Large investors have recently added to or reduced their stakes in the business. Quantbot Technologies LP acquired a new position in VNET Group during the 1st quarter worth approximately $36,000. Summit Securities Group LLC purchased a new stake in shares of VNET Group during the 1st quarter worth $40,000. Barclays PLC grew its stake in shares of VNET Group by 229.3% during the fourth quarter. Barclays PLC now owns 7,093 shares of the information technology services provider's stock worth $34,000 after purchasing an additional 4,939 shares in the last quarter. Point72 Asia Singapore Pte. Ltd. purchased a new position in VNET Group in the fourth quarter valued at $41,000. Finally, Liontrust Investment Partners LLP purchased a new position in VNET Group in the first quarter valued at $78,000. 72.83% of the stock is owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

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.