VNET Group (NASDAQ:VNET) Shares Gap Up - What's Next?

Key Points

• VNET Group's stock price gapped up from $7.93 to $8.39 at market open, with shares last trading at $9.06 and a trading volume of 1,449,270 shares.
• Analysts have varying opinions on VNET Group, with Bank of America raising its price target to $12.60, while Wall Street Zen downgraded it to a "sell," reflecting a consensus "buy" rating with an average target price of $9.96.
• The company recently reported earnings per share of -$0.01, missing estimates, and has set its FY 2025 guidance at a projected EPS of -$0.06.

VNET Group, Inc. - Unsponsored ADR (NASDAQ:VNET - Get Free Report) gapped up prior to trading on Thursday . The stock had previously closed at $7.93, but opened at $8.39. VNET Group shares last traded at $9.06, with a volume of 1,449,270 shares changing hands.

Analyst Ratings Changes

A number of analysts have issued reports on the company. Wall Street Zen lowered VNET Group from a "hold" rating to a "sell" rating in a research report on Saturday, August 23rd. Bank of America boosted their target price 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 investment analysts have rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating and five have assigned a Buy rating to the company. Based on data from MarketBeat, the stock currently has a consensus rating of "Buy" and a consensus target price of $9.96.

VNET Group Price Performance

The business has a 50-day moving average price of $8.14 and a two-hundred day moving average price of $7.40. The company has a quick ratio of 0.97, a current ratio of 0.97 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 2.40. The firm has a market cap of $2.58 billion, a PE ratio of -119.88, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 6.09 and a beta of 0.16.

VNET Group (NASDAQ:VNET - Get Free Report) last issued its earnings results on Thursday, August 21st. The information technology services provider reported ($0.01) EPS 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. On average, equities research analysts expect that VNET Group, Inc. - Unsponsored ADR will post -0.06 EPS for the current year.

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

Hedge Funds Weigh In On VNET Group

A number of institutional investors and hedge funds have recently modified their holdings of VNET. BNP Paribas Financial Markets grew its stake in shares of VNET Group by 1,290.8% during the fourth quarter. BNP Paribas Financial Markets now owns 101,847 shares of the information technology services provider's stock worth $483,000 after purchasing an additional 94,524 shares in the last quarter. Bank of America Corp DE grew its holdings in shares of VNET Group by 610.2% during the fourth quarter. Bank of America Corp DE now owns 1,198,750 shares of the information technology services provider's stock worth $5,682,000 after purchasing an additional 1,029,963 shares during the last quarter. Cetera Investment Advisers purchased a new position in shares of VNET Group during the fourth quarter worth about $102,000. Millennium Management LLC grew its holdings in shares of VNET Group by 3.4% during the fourth quarter. Millennium Management LLC now owns 5,578,371 shares of the information technology services provider's stock worth $26,441,000 after purchasing an additional 181,749 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Man Group plc purchased a new position in shares of VNET Group during the fourth quarter worth about $5,094,000. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 72.83% of the company's stock.

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.