Short Interest in GDS Holdings Limited (NASDAQ:GDS) Grows By 11.9%

GDS Holdings Limited (NASDAQ:GDS) was the recipient of a large growth in short interest in the month of October. As of October 15th, there was short interest totalling 6,210,000 shares, a growth of 11.9% from the September 30th total of 5,550,000 shares. Based on an average daily trading volume, of 1,700,000 shares, the days-to-cover ratio is presently 3.7 days. Approximately 3.5% of the company’s shares are short sold.

Wall Street Analyst Weigh In

GDS has been the subject of several recent analyst reports. Royal Bank of Canada increased their price objective on shares of GDS from $14.00 to $26.00 and gave the stock an “outperform” rating in a research report on Monday, October 14th. Nomura Securities upgraded GDS to a “strong-buy” rating in a report on Monday, August 26th. Finally, Bank of America boosted their price objective on GDS from $12.40 to $22.40 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a research note on Tuesday, August 27th. One research analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, one has issued a hold rating, three have given a buy rating and one has assigned a strong buy rating to the company’s stock. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, GDS has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus target price of $18.29.

GDS Stock Up 0.2 %

Shares of GDS stock traded up $0.05 on Thursday, hitting $21.91. The company had a trading volume of 856,812 shares, compared to its average volume of 1,597,770. GDS has a 1 year low of $5.01 and a 1 year high of $24.50. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 2.30, a quick ratio of 1.39 and a current ratio of 1.39. The stock has a 50 day moving average of $19.62 and a 200-day moving average of $13.10. The stock has a market capitalization of $4.18 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of -6.83 and a beta of 0.24.

GDS (NASDAQ:GDS) last announced its earnings results on Wednesday, August 21st. The company reported ($0.18) EPS for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of ($0.25) by $0.07. GDS had a negative net margin of 39.96% and a negative return on equity of 9.10%. The company had revenue of $388.92 million during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $384.14 million. As a group, sell-side analysts forecast that GDS will post -1.14 earnings per share for the current year.

Hedge Funds Weigh In On GDS

Several hedge funds have recently made changes to their positions in the stock. BNP Paribas Financial Markets increased its holdings in GDS by 51.0% during the 1st quarter. BNP Paribas Financial Markets now owns 185,137 shares of the company’s stock worth $1,231,000 after acquiring an additional 62,521 shares during the period. Swedbank AB bought a new position in shares of GDS in the first quarter worth $2,174,000. SG Americas Securities LLC purchased a new stake in shares of GDS in the first quarter worth $429,000. Janney Montgomery Scott LLC raised its position in shares of GDS by 55.3% in the first quarter. Janney Montgomery Scott LLC now owns 144,449 shares of the company’s stock worth $961,000 after buying an additional 51,439 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Farallon Capital Management LLC boosted its stake in GDS by 72.7% during the second quarter. Farallon Capital Management LLC now owns 1,226,133 shares of the company’s stock valued at $11,391,000 after buying an additional 516,133 shares during the period. 33.71% of the stock is currently owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

About GDS

GDS Holdings Limited, together with its subsidiaries, develops and operates data centers in the People's Republic of China. The company provides colocation services comprising critical facilities space, customer-available power, racks, and cooling; managed hosting services, including business continuity and disaster recovery, network management, data storage, system security, operating system, database, and server middleware services; managed cloud services; and consulting services.