VNET Group (NASDAQ:VNET) Shares Down 6.3% - What's Next?

VNET Group, Inc. - Unsponsored ADR (NASDAQ:VNET - Get Free Report)'s stock price dropped 6.3% on Wednesday . The stock traded as low as $7.05 and last traded at $7.09. Approximately 1,457,086 shares traded hands during mid-day trading, a decline of 71% from the average daily volume of 5,070,150 shares. The stock had previously closed at $7.56.

Analyst Ratings Changes

VNET has been the topic of several recent research reports. Wall Street Zen cut shares of VNET Group from a "hold" rating to a "sell" rating in a research note on Saturday, July 5th. Citigroup upped 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. One research analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, four have given a buy rating and two have issued a strong buy rating to the company's stock. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, VNET Group has a consensus rating of "Buy" and an average target price of $9.30.

VNET Group Trading Down 3.2%

The stock has a 50 day moving average of $6.23 and a 200-day moving average of $7.30. The company has a market capitalization of $1.87 billion, a P/E ratio of -694.50, a P/E/G ratio of 1.42 and a beta of 0.14. The company has a current ratio of 1.10, a quick ratio of 1.10 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 2.34.

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 firm had revenue of $309.52 million for the quarter, compared to analysts' expectations of $2.22 billion. During the same quarter last year, the firm posted ($0.28) EPS. On average, research analysts predict that VNET Group, Inc. - Unsponsored ADR will post -0.06 EPS for the current year.

VNET Group declared that its board has authorized a share repurchase plan 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 buy shares of its stock through open market purchases. Stock buyback plans are often an indication that the company's board believes its shares are undervalued.

Institutional Trading of VNET Group

Several institutional investors and hedge funds have recently added to or reduced their stakes in VNET. Connor Clark & Lunn Investment Management Ltd. raised its stake in VNET Group by 472.1% during the 4th quarter. Connor Clark & Lunn Investment Management Ltd. now owns 278,801 shares of the information technology services provider's stock valued at $1,322,000 after purchasing an additional 230,068 shares during the period. American Century Companies Inc. grew its stake in VNET Group by 20.4% during the fourth quarter. American Century Companies Inc. now owns 474,929 shares of the information technology services provider's stock valued at $2,251,000 after acquiring an additional 80,516 shares in the last quarter. JPMorgan Chase & Co. grew its stake in VNET Group by 622.8% during the fourth quarter. JPMorgan Chase & Co. now owns 989,402 shares of the information technology services provider's stock valued at $4,690,000 after acquiring an additional 852,519 shares in the last quarter. Norges Bank purchased a new position in VNET Group during the fourth quarter valued at $1,708,000. Finally, Arrowstreet Capital Limited Partnership purchased a new position in VNET Group during the fourth quarter valued at $1,811,000. Institutional investors 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.