Raymond James Financial Inc. Acquires New Holdings in StoneCo Ltd. (NASDAQ:STNE)

Raymond James Financial Inc. bought a new stake in shares of StoneCo Ltd. (NASDAQ:STNE) in the 4th quarter, according to its most recent 13F filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The institutional investor bought 16,533 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $132,000.

Several other hedge funds have also recently made changes to their positions in STNE. State Street Corp raised its holdings in shares of StoneCo by 51.0% during the third quarter. State Street Corp now owns 7,972,037 shares of the company’s stock valued at $89,765,000 after purchasing an additional 2,692,558 shares during the last quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC grew its holdings in shares of StoneCo by 36.0% in the third quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC now owns 5,190,344 shares of the company’s stock valued at $58,302,000 after purchasing an additional 1,374,788 shares in the last quarter. 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 valued at $17,798,000 after purchasing an additional 1,210,817 shares during the last quarter. Barclays PLC raised its stake in shares of StoneCo by 170.8% in the third quarter. Barclays PLC now owns 440,682 shares of the company’s stock valued at $4,962,000 after acquiring an additional 277,963 shares during the period. Finally, FMR LLC raised its position in StoneCo by 466.4% in the 3rd quarter. FMR LLC now owns 64,492 shares of the company’s stock worth $726,000 after purchasing an additional 53,106 shares during the period. 73.19% of the stock is owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

Several equities analysts have issued reports on the company. JPMorgan Chase & Co. cut their target price on StoneCo from $21.00 to $15.00 and set an “overweight” rating on the stock in a research note on Monday, December 16th. Wells Fargo & Company upgraded shares of StoneCo from an “equal weight” rating to an “overweight” rating in a report on Wednesday, March 19th. Barclays increased their price objective on shares of StoneCo from $10.00 to $12.00 and gave the company an “equal weight” rating in a research report on Friday, March 21st. The Goldman Sachs Group dropped their price objective on StoneCo from $16.00 to $14.00 and set a “buy” rating on the stock in a report on Thursday, February 6th. Finally, Morgan Stanley increased their price objective on StoneCo from $5.70 to $6.00 and gave the stock an “underweight” rating in a research report on Friday, March 21st. One equities research analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, two have assigned a hold rating, six have given a buy rating and one has given a strong buy rating to the company’s stock. According to data from MarketBeat, the stock has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus target price of $14.50.

StoneCo Price Performance

NASDAQ STNE opened at $11.53 on Friday. The stock has a market cap of $3.56 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 9.01, a PEG ratio of 0.41 and a beta of 2.05. StoneCo Ltd. has a 52-week low of $7.72 and a 52-week high of $17.09. The business has a 50 day simple moving average of $10.12 and a 200 day simple moving average of $9.86. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.47, a quick ratio of 1.42 and a current ratio of 1.42.

StoneCo (NASDAQ:STNE) last posted its quarterly earnings results on Tuesday, March 18th. The company reported $0.39 earnings per share for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $0.32 by $0.07. The business had revenue of $582.20 million for the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $3.59 billion. StoneCo had a return on equity of 13.92% and a net margin of 16.02%. Analysts anticipate that StoneCo Ltd. 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.