Short Interest in GDS Holdings Limited (NASDAQ:GDS) Declines By 9.5%

GDS Holdings Limited (NASDAQ:GDS) was the target of a large decline in short interest during the month of October. As of October 31st, there was short interest totalling 5,620,000 shares, a decline of 9.5% from the October 15th total of 6,210,000 shares. Approximately 3.1% of the company’s stock are short sold. Based on an average daily volume of 1,720,000 shares, the short-interest ratio is currently 3.3 days.

Institutional Investors Weigh In On GDS

Several large investors have recently modified their holdings of GDS. Signaturefd LLC raised its stake in GDS by 17.3% in the 3rd quarter. Signaturefd LLC now owns 8,221 shares of the company’s stock valued at $168,000 after acquiring an additional 1,215 shares during the period. Blue Trust Inc. increased its stake in shares of GDS by 1,558.3% in the third quarter. Blue Trust Inc. now owns 2,504 shares of the company’s stock worth $51,000 after purchasing an additional 2,353 shares in the last quarter. BNP Paribas Financial Markets raised its position in shares of GDS by 1.4% in the third quarter. BNP Paribas Financial Markets now owns 182,388 shares of the company’s stock valued at $3,721,000 after purchasing an additional 2,543 shares during the period. Public Employees Retirement System of Ohio purchased a new stake in shares of GDS during the 3rd quarter valued at approximately $64,000. Finally, Centiva Capital LP boosted its holdings in GDS by 49.5% in the 3rd quarter. Centiva Capital LP now owns 23,479 shares of the company’s stock worth $479,000 after buying an additional 7,772 shares during the period. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 33.71% of the company’s stock.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

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

GDS Stock Performance

GDS stock traded up $1.53 during midday trading on Monday, hitting $23.49. The company’s stock had a trading volume of 2,427,199 shares, compared to its average volume of 1,589,257. GDS has a 1 year low of $5.01 and a 1 year high of $24.74. The stock has a market cap of $4.48 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of -7.32 and a beta of 0.23. The stock’s 50-day moving average price is $20.91 and its 200 day moving average price is $14.46. The company has a quick ratio of 1.39, a current ratio of 1.39 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 2.30.

GDS (NASDAQ:GDS) last issued its quarterly earnings results on Wednesday, August 21st. The company reported ($0.18) earnings per share for the quarter, topping analysts’ consensus estimates 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 for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $384.14 million. On average, equities analysts forecast that GDS will post -1.14 EPS for the current year.

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.