VNET Group (NASDAQ:VNET) Shares Down 10.6% - Time to Sell?

Key Points

• VNET Group's stock experienced a significant decline of 10.6%, trading as low as $7.29 following an average session volume drop of 72%.
• Wall Street analysts have a consensus rating of "Buy" for VNET Group, with a target price of $9.30, despite the recent price drop.
• The company reported a miss in earnings per share, posting ($0.12) compared to expectations, and its revenue was substantially below the consensus estimate of $2.22 billion.

VNET Group, Inc. - Unsponsored ADR (NASDAQ:VNET - Get Free Report) shares dropped 10.6% during trading on Friday . The company traded as low as $7.29 and last traded at $7.43. Approximately 2,289,068 shares were traded during trading, a decline of 72% from the average daily volume of 8,135,723 shares. The stock had previously closed at $8.31.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

Separately, Wall Street Zen raised shares of VNET Group from a "sell" rating to a "hold" rating in a research note on Sunday, July 13th. One equities research analyst has rated the stock with a hold rating, four have issued a buy rating and two have issued a strong buy rating to the stock. According to data from MarketBeat.com, the stock currently has an average rating of "Buy" and an average price target of $9.30.

VNET Group Trading Up 0.3%

The company has a quick ratio of 1.10, a current ratio of 1.10 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 2.34. The firm's 50 day simple moving average is $6.90 and its two-hundred day simple moving average is $7.74. The stock has a market capitalization of $2.11 billion, a P/E ratio of -782.50, a P/E/G ratio of 3.05 and a beta of 0.18.

VNET Group (NASDAQ:VNET - Get Free Report) last released its 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 for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $2.22 billion. During the same period in the prior year, the company earned ($0.28) earnings per share. As a group, analysts forecast 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 approved a stock buyback program on Friday, June 27th that allows the company to repurchase $0.00 in shares. This repurchase authorization allows the information technology services provider to purchase shares of its stock through open market purchases. Shares repurchase programs are often an indication that the company's management believes its shares are undervalued.

Institutional Trading of VNET Group

Several institutional investors and hedge funds have recently bought and sold shares of VNET. American Century Companies Inc. raised its position in VNET Group by 20.4% in the 4th quarter. American Century Companies Inc. now owns 474,929 shares of the information technology services provider's stock worth $2,251,000 after purchasing an additional 80,516 shares during the period. JPMorgan Chase & Co. raised its position in VNET Group by 622.8% in the 4th quarter. JPMorgan Chase & Co. now owns 989,402 shares of the information technology services provider's stock worth $4,690,000 after purchasing an additional 852,519 shares during the period. Norges Bank purchased a new position in VNET Group in the 4th quarter worth $1,708,000. Arrowstreet Capital Limited Partnership bought a new stake in VNET Group in the 4th quarter worth $1,811,000. Finally, Wedbush Securities Inc. bought a new stake in VNET Group in the 4th quarter worth $127,000. 72.83% of the stock is currently 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.