Traders Buy Large Volume of StoneCo Put Options (NASDAQ:STNE)

StoneCo Ltd. (NASDAQ:STNE) was the target of unusually large options trading on Wednesday. Investors purchased 9,290 put options on the stock. This represents an increase of approximately 44% compared to the average daily volume of 6,451 put options.

Analyst Ratings Changes

A number of equities analysts have issued reports on STNE shares. The Goldman Sachs Group cut their price objective on shares of StoneCo from $21.00 to $15.00 and set a “buy” rating on the stock in a report on Wednesday, June 26th. UBS Group raised shares of StoneCo from a “neutral” rating to a “buy” rating and reduced their price objective for the stock from $21.00 to $17.00 in a research report on Monday, July 8th. Evercore ISI decreased their price objective on shares of StoneCo from $25.00 to $23.00 and set an “outperform” rating for the company in a research note on Tuesday, June 25th. Barclays cut their target price on StoneCo from $16.00 to $14.00 and set an “equal weight” rating on the stock in a research note on Thursday, August 1st. Finally, JPMorgan Chase & Co. raised StoneCo from a “neutral” rating to an “overweight” rating and set a $20.00 price objective on the stock in a research report on Thursday, June 6th. One research analyst has rated the stock with a hold rating and eight have given a buy rating to the company. According to MarketBeat.com, StoneCo currently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average price target of $18.89.

StoneCo Stock Performance

NASDAQ:STNE traded down $0.52 during mid-day trading on Wednesday, reaching $12.96. The company’s stock had a trading volume of 3,405,948 shares, compared to its average volume of 5,251,686. The firm’s fifty day moving average price is $12.98 and its two-hundred day moving average price is $14.77. The stock has a market cap of $4.00 billion, a P/E ratio of 12.14, a PEG ratio of 0.49 and a beta of 2.32. StoneCo has a 12-month low of $9.34 and a 12-month high of $19.46. The company has a current ratio of 1.36, a quick ratio of 1.36 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.41.

Institutional Inflows and Outflows

Hedge funds have recently bought and sold shares of the company. UBS Group AG boosted its stake in shares of StoneCo by 14.5% during the 4th quarter. UBS Group AG now owns 2,001,221 shares of the company’s stock worth $36,082,000 after purchasing an additional 253,276 shares during the period. Quadrature Capital Ltd bought a new stake in StoneCo in the fourth quarter worth about $2,008,000. Norges Bank purchased a new position in shares of StoneCo during the fourth quarter valued at approximately $58,777,000. Lord Abbett & CO. LLC bought a new position in shares of StoneCo during the first quarter valued at approximately $33,139,000. Finally, Vanguard Group Inc. raised its holdings in shares of StoneCo by 3.5% in the first quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 2,636,619 shares of the company’s stock worth $43,794,000 after buying an additional 88,256 shares during the period. Institutional investors own 73.19% of the company’s stock.

About StoneCo

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.