VNET Group (NASDAQ:VNET) Shares Gap Up – Here’s What Happened

VNET Group, Inc. (NASDAQ:VNET)’s stock price gapped up prior to trading on Thursday . The stock had previously closed at $3.58, but opened at $3.74. VNET Group shares last traded at $3.71, with a volume of 151,446 shares trading hands.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

A number of equities analysts recently commented on VNET shares. The Goldman Sachs Group raised shares of VNET Group from a “neutral” rating to a “buy” rating and raised their price objective for the stock from $3.10 to $5.00 in a research note on Friday, November 29th. HSBC upgraded shares of VNET Group from a “hold” rating to a “buy” rating and set a $5.20 price target for the company in a report on Wednesday, October 9th. Citigroup initiated coverage on shares of VNET Group in a research report on Wednesday, September 4th. They issued a “buy” rating and a $4.00 target price for the company. Hsbc Global Res upgraded shares of VNET Group to a “strong-buy” rating in a report on Wednesday, October 9th. Finally, UBS Group increased their price objective on VNET Group from $6.40 to $7.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a report on Friday, November 29th. One research analyst has rated the stock with a hold rating, five have assigned a buy rating and one has given a strong buy rating to the company’s stock. According to MarketBeat, the stock currently has an average rating of “Buy” and an average price target of $4.78.

VNET Group Price Performance

The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.46, a current ratio of 0.83 and a quick ratio of 0.83. The stock has a market capitalization of $921.48 million, a P/E ratio of -1.61 and a beta of -0.19. The stock’s fifty day moving average is $3.72 and its 200-day moving average is $2.91.

Institutional Investors Weigh In On VNET Group

Several institutional investors and hedge funds have recently added to or reduced their stakes in VNET. Virtu Financial LLC bought a new position in VNET Group during the third quarter worth about $519,000. Geode Capital Management LLC boosted its stake in shares of VNET Group by 237.7% during the 3rd quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC now owns 298,539 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $1,218,000 after acquiring an additional 210,124 shares during the period. Public Employees Retirement System of Ohio acquired a new position in VNET Group in the 3rd quarter valued at $191,000. Anson Funds Management LP grew its stake in shares of VNET Group by 84.9% in the third quarter. Anson Funds Management LP now owns 450,000 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $1,836,000 after acquiring an additional 206,580 shares in the last quarter. Finally, XTX Topco Ltd bought a new position in shares of VNET Group during the third quarter worth approximately $343,000. 72.83% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

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.