MetLife Investment Management LLC Sells 5,575 Shares of StoneCo Ltd. $STNE

MetLife Investment Management LLC decreased its position in StoneCo Ltd. (NASDAQ:STNE) by 3.2% in the first quarter, HoldingsChannel.com reports. The institutional investor owned 169,134 shares of the company’s stock after selling 5,575 shares during the quarter. MetLife Investment Management LLC’s holdings in StoneCo were worth $1,773,000 at the end of the most recent reporting period.

Other hedge funds also recently bought and sold shares of the company. GAMMA Investing LLC lifted its position in StoneCo by 1,486.3% in the 1st quarter. GAMMA Investing LLC now owns 2,903 shares of the company’s stock worth $30,000 after buying an additional 2,720 shares during the last quarter. CWM LLC lifted its position in StoneCo by 327.4% in the 1st quarter. CWM LLC now owns 3,154 shares of the company’s stock worth $33,000 after buying an additional 2,416 shares during the last quarter. Harbor Capital Advisors Inc. lifted its position in StoneCo by 143.0% in the 1st quarter. Harbor Capital Advisors Inc. now owns 4,614 shares of the company’s stock worth $48,000 after buying an additional 2,715 shares during the last quarter. Signaturefd LLC lifted its position in StoneCo by 13.6% in the 1st quarter. Signaturefd LLC now owns 7,708 shares of the company’s stock worth $81,000 after buying an additional 924 shares during the last quarter. Finally, PNC Financial Services Group Inc. lifted its position in StoneCo by 18.4% in the 1st quarter. PNC Financial Services Group Inc. now owns 8,473 shares of the company’s stock worth $89,000 after buying an additional 1,317 shares during the last quarter. Institutional investors own 73.19% of the company’s stock.

StoneCo Stock Performance

Shares of STNE stock opened at $16.28 on Wednesday. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.76, a quick ratio of 1.48 and a current ratio of 1.48. StoneCo Ltd. has a fifty-two week low of $7.72 and a fifty-two week high of $16.82. The company has a market capitalization of $4.66 billion, a P/E ratio of -23.26, a PEG ratio of 0.44 and a beta of 1.91. The stock has a 50 day moving average price of $14.89 and a two-hundred day moving average price of $13.08.

StoneCo (NASDAQ:STNE) last posted its earnings results on Thursday, August 7th. The company reported $0.39 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $0.36 by $0.03. StoneCo had a positive return on equity of 18.71% and a negative net margin of 8.37%.The firm had revenue of $643.82 million for the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $3.78 billion. Analysts expect that StoneCo Ltd. will post 1.16 earnings per share for the current year.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

A number of analysts recently weighed in on STNE shares. JPMorgan Chase & Co. boosted their target price on StoneCo from $15.50 to $18.50 and gave the stock an “overweight” rating in a research report on Wednesday, July 16th. UBS Group boosted their target price on StoneCo from $15.00 to $20.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a research report on Friday. Santander upgraded StoneCo from a “neutral” rating to an “outperform” rating in a research report on Wednesday, May 21st. Barclays boosted their price objective on StoneCo from $13.00 to $15.00 and gave the company an “equal weight” rating in a research report on Monday, May 12th. Finally, Zacks Research upgraded StoneCo to a “strong-buy” rating in a research report on Tuesday, August 12th. Two research analysts have rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, seven have issued a Buy rating, one has issued a Hold rating and one has issued a Sell rating to the stock. According to data from MarketBeat, StoneCo currently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average price target of $15.36.

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.