Traders Purchase Large Volume of VNET Group Call Options (NASDAQ:VNET)

VNET Group, Inc. (NASDAQ:VNET) was the target of some unusual options trading activity on Monday. Traders acquired 15,633 call options on the stock. This represents an increase of approximately 215% compared to the average volume of 4,969 call options.

VNET Group Price Performance

VNET stock opened at $8.48 on Wednesday. The company has a market capitalization of $2.18 billion, a PE ratio of -3.82, a P/E/G ratio of 1.01 and a beta of 0.07. The company has a quick ratio of 0.83, a current ratio of 0.83 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.46. The stock’s 50 day moving average is $9.81 and its two-hundred day moving average is $5.96. VNET Group has a 52-week low of $1.42 and a 52-week high of $16.13.

VNET Group (NASDAQ:VNET) last posted its quarterly earnings results on Wednesday, March 12th. The information technology services provider reported ($0.01) earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, missing the consensus estimate of $0.03 by ($0.04). The company had revenue of $307.75 million during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $284.88 million. VNET Group had a negative net margin of 28.54% and a negative return on equity of 5.68%. Analysts predict that VNET Group will post -0.06 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Wall Street Analyst Weigh In

Several brokerages recently issued reports on VNET. Nomura Securities upgraded VNET Group to a “strong-buy” rating in a report on Friday, February 21st. The Goldman Sachs Group upgraded VNET Group from a “neutral” rating to a “buy” rating and raised their target price for the company from $3.10 to $5.00 in a report on Friday, November 29th. UBS Group upped their price target on VNET Group from $6.40 to $7.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a report on Friday, November 29th. StockNews.com lowered shares of VNET Group from a “hold” rating to a “sell” rating in a research note on Friday, March 14th. Finally, Citigroup boosted their target price on shares of VNET Group from $16.10 to $20.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a research report on Friday, March 14th. One investment analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, four have assigned a buy rating and two have assigned a strong buy rating to the stock. According to data from MarketBeat, VNET Group presently has an average rating of “Buy” and an average price target of $9.30.

Hedge Funds Weigh In On VNET Group

A number of hedge funds have recently bought and sold shares of the company. Triata Capital Ltd bought a new position in VNET Group during the 4th quarter worth approximately $47,377,000. Millennium Management LLC raised its position in shares of VNET Group by 3.4% during the 4th quarter. Millennium Management LLC now owns 5,578,371 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $26,441,000 after acquiring an additional 181,749 shares in the last quarter. MIRAE ASSET GLOBAL ETFS HOLDINGS Ltd. lifted its stake in VNET Group by 4.6% during the fourth quarter. MIRAE ASSET GLOBAL ETFS HOLDINGS Ltd. now owns 2,145,529 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $10,170,000 after purchasing an additional 93,891 shares during the last quarter. D. E. Shaw & Co. Inc. acquired a new position in VNET Group in the fourth quarter worth $7,183,000. Finally, Bank of America Corp DE boosted its holdings in VNET Group by 610.2% in the fourth quarter. Bank of America Corp DE now owns 1,198,750 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $5,682,000 after purchasing an additional 1,029,963 shares during the period. 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.