VNET Group (NASDAQ:VNET) Shares Down 5.1% - Time to Sell?

Key Points

• VNET Group's shares dropped 5.1%, closing at $7.87, significantly below the previous close of $8.29, with trading volume down by 81%.
• Analyst ratings show mixed views, with Wall Street Zen changing their recommendation from "hold" to "sell," while Bank of America increased their target price from $11.80 to $12.60 and maintained a "buy" rating.
• Recent quarterly earnings reported a loss of (0.01) earnings per share, falling short of analysts' expectations, prompting a FY 2025 EPS guidance of -0.06.

VNET Group, Inc. - Unsponsored ADR (NASDAQ:VNET - Get Free Report)'s share price fell 5.1% during trading on Monday . The company traded as low as $7.82 and last traded at $7.87. 1,491,209 shares traded hands during trading, a decline of 81% from the average session volume of 7,806,104 shares. The stock had previously closed at $8.29.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

A number of brokerages recently commented on VNET. Wall Street Zen cut VNET Group from a "hold" rating to a "sell" rating in a research note on Saturday, August 23rd. Bank of America lifted their price objective on VNET Group from $11.80 to $12.60 and gave the stock a "buy" rating in a research note on Friday, August 22nd. Two research analysts have rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating and five have assigned a Buy rating to the company. According to data from MarketBeat, VNET Group presently has an average rating of "Buy" and an average target price of $9.96.

VNET Group Trading Up 1.5%

The company has a market capitalization of $2.33 billion, a P/E ratio of -108.25, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 5.93 and a beta of 0.18. The business has a fifty day moving average price of $7.77 and a 200 day moving average price of $7.79. The company has a quick ratio of 0.97, a current ratio of 0.97 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 2.40.

VNET Group (NASDAQ:VNET - Get Free Report) last released its earnings results on Thursday, August 21st. The information technology services provider reported ($0.01) earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, missing the consensus estimate of $0.02 by ($0.03). VNET Group had a return on equity of 0.98% and a net margin of 0.74%.The company had revenue of $339.65 million for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $2.27 billion. VNET Group has set its FY 2025 guidance at EPS. On average, analysts expect that VNET Group, Inc. - Unsponsored ADR will post -0.06 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

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

Hedge Funds Weigh In On VNET Group

Several institutional investors and hedge funds have recently made changes to their positions in the company. Triata Capital Ltd acquired a new stake in VNET Group during the fourth quarter worth approximately $47,377,000. Infini Capital Management Ltd grew its position in VNET Group by 39.2% during the second quarter. Infini Capital Management Ltd now owns 9,758,083 shares of the information technology services provider's stock worth $67,331,000 after buying an additional 2,747,661 shares in the last quarter. Norges Bank acquired a new stake in VNET Group during the second quarter worth approximately $54,199,000. Oxbow Capital Management HK Ltd grew its position in VNET Group by 64.3% during the second quarter. Oxbow Capital Management HK Ltd now owns 5,750,000 shares of the information technology services provider's stock worth $39,675,000 after buying an additional 2,250,000 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Millennium Management LLC grew its position in 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 buying an additional 181,749 shares in the last quarter. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 72.83% of the company's stock.

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.