VNET Group Target of Unusually High Options Trading (NASDAQ:VNET)

VNET Group, Inc. (NASDAQ:VNET) was the recipient of some unusual options trading activity on Monday. Investors acquired 15,633 call options on the company. This is an increase of 215% compared to the typical volume of 4,969 call options.

VNET Group Stock Performance

Shares of VNET Group stock traded up $0.29 on Monday, reaching $9.00. 2,808,296 shares of the stock were exchanged, compared to its average volume of 3,251,769. VNET Group has a 1-year low of $1.42 and a 1-year high of $16.13. The company has a current ratio of 0.83, a quick ratio of 0.83 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.46. The business has a fifty day moving average price of $9.67 and a two-hundred day moving average price of $5.88. The firm has a market capitalization of $2.32 billion, a PE ratio of -4.05, a PEG ratio of 1.01 and a beta of 0.07.

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

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

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

Institutional Inflows and Outflows

Several institutional investors and hedge funds have recently added to or reduced their stakes in VNET. Connor Clark & Lunn Investment Management Ltd. acquired a new position in VNET Group during the third quarter worth about $199,000. Walleye Capital LLC acquired a new position in VNET Group during the third quarter worth about $115,000. Wolverine Trading LLC acquired a new position in VNET Group during the third quarter worth about $46,000. XTX Topco Ltd acquired a new position in VNET Group during the third quarter worth about $343,000. Finally, Anson Funds Management LP grew its position in VNET Group by 84.9% during the third quarter. Anson Funds Management LP now owns 450,000 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $1,836,000 after buying an additional 206,580 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.