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

VNET Group, Inc. - Unsponsored ADR (NASDAQ:VNET - Get Free Report)'s stock price gapped up before the market opened on Tuesday . The stock had previously closed at $7.92, but opened at $9.01. VNET Group shares last traded at $8.50, with a volume of 8,412,126 shares.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

Separately, Wall Street Zen upgraded shares of VNET Group from a "sell" rating to a "hold" rating in a research report on Sunday, July 13th. One analyst has rated the stock with a hold rating, four have given a buy rating and two have issued a strong buy rating to the company. Based on data from MarketBeat, the company currently has an average rating of "Buy" and a consensus target price 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's 50 day simple moving average is $6.49 and its two-hundred day simple moving average is $7.50. The stock has a market cap of $2.42 billion, a P/E ratio of -901.00, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 1.65 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 for the quarter, missing analysts' consensus estimates of ($0.01) by ($0.11). VNET Group had a net margin of 1.66% and a return on equity of 2.11%. The company had revenue of $309.52 million during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $2.22 billion. During the same period in the previous year, the firm posted ($0.28) EPS. As a group, research analysts forecast that VNET Group, Inc. - Unsponsored ADR will post -0.06 EPS for the current year.

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

Hedge Funds Weigh In On VNET Group

A number of institutional investors have recently added to or reduced their stakes in the company. Barclays PLC boosted its position in shares of VNET Group by 229.3% in the fourth quarter. Barclays PLC now owns 7,093 shares of the information technology services provider's stock valued at $34,000 after acquiring an additional 4,939 shares during the period. Farther Finance Advisors LLC bought a new stake in shares of VNET Group in the second quarter valued at about $34,000. Quantbot Technologies LP bought a new stake in shares of VNET Group in the first quarter valued at about $36,000. Summit Securities Group LLC bought a new stake in shares of VNET Group in the first quarter valued at about $40,000. Finally, Point72 Asia Singapore Pte. Ltd. bought a new position in shares of VNET Group in the fourth quarter worth about $41,000. 72.83% of the stock is currently 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.