Stock Traders Buy High Volume of Call Options on StoneCo (NASDAQ:STNE)

StoneCo Ltd. (NASDAQ:STNE) was the recipient of unusually large options trading on Wednesday. Stock traders purchased 8,575 call options on the stock. This represents an increase of 41% compared to the typical volume of 6,092 call options.

Institutional Investors Weigh In On StoneCo

A number of hedge funds and other institutional investors have recently bought and sold shares of the company. JPMorgan Chase & Co. increased its position in shares of StoneCo by 327.4% during the 3rd quarter. JPMorgan Chase & Co. now owns 1,580,679 shares of the company’s stock worth $17,798,000 after purchasing an additional 1,210,817 shares during the last quarter. State Street Corp increased its position in shares of StoneCo by 51.0% during the 3rd quarter. State Street Corp now owns 7,972,037 shares of the company’s stock worth $89,765,000 after purchasing an additional 2,692,558 shares during the last quarter. UBS AM a distinct business unit of UBS ASSET MANAGEMENT AMERICAS LLC acquired a new position in shares of StoneCo during the 3rd quarter worth approximately $9,091,000. Barclays PLC increased its position in shares of StoneCo by 170.8% during the 3rd quarter. Barclays PLC now owns 440,682 shares of the company’s stock worth $4,962,000 after purchasing an additional 277,963 shares during the last quarter. Finally, BNP Paribas Financial Markets increased its position in shares of StoneCo by 313.4% during the 3rd quarter. BNP Paribas Financial Markets now owns 472,758 shares of the company’s stock worth $5,323,000 after purchasing an additional 358,398 shares during the last quarter. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 73.19% of the company’s stock.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

STNE has been the subject of several recent analyst reports. The Goldman Sachs Group dropped their price objective on StoneCo from $16.00 to $14.00 and set a “buy” rating for the company in a research note on Thursday, February 6th. Wells Fargo & Company upgraded StoneCo from an “equal weight” rating to an “overweight” rating in a research note on Wednesday. Citigroup reiterated a “neutral” rating and issued a $9.00 price target (down previously from $19.00) on shares of StoneCo in a report on Thursday, January 16th. Barclays decreased their price target on StoneCo from $12.00 to $10.00 and set an “equal weight” rating on the stock in a report on Wednesday, January 29th. Finally, JPMorgan Chase & Co. reduced their target price on StoneCo from $21.00 to $15.00 and set an “overweight” rating on the stock in a report on Monday, December 16th. One equities research analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, two have issued a hold rating, six have assigned a buy rating and one has issued a strong buy rating to the company’s stock. Based on data from MarketBeat, StoneCo presently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average price target of $14.38.

StoneCo Trading Down 1.8 %

NASDAQ STNE opened at $11.18 on Friday. The firm has a market cap of $3.45 billion, a P/E ratio of 8.73, a P/E/G ratio of 0.41 and a beta of 2.33. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.47, a current ratio of 1.42 and a quick ratio of 1.42. The stock’s 50-day moving average is $9.30 and its 200-day moving average is $9.98. StoneCo has a one year low of $7.72 and a one year high of $17.93.

StoneCo (NASDAQ:STNE) last announced its earnings results on Tuesday, March 18th. The company reported $0.39 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $0.32 by $0.07. StoneCo had a return on equity of 13.92% and a net margin of 16.02%. The business had revenue of $582.20 million for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $3.59 billion. Sell-side analysts anticipate that StoneCo will post 1.16 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

StoneCo Company Profile

StoneCo Ltd. provides financial technology and software solutions to merchants and integrated partners to conduct electronic commerce across in-store, online, and mobile channels in Brazil. It distributes its solutions, principally through proprietary Stone Hubs, which offer hyper-local sales and services; and sells solutions to brick-and-mortar and digital merchants through sales team.