VNET Group, Inc. (NASDAQ:VNET) Sees Significant Increase in Short Interest

VNET Group, Inc. (NASDAQ:VNET) saw a significant growth in short interest in the month of November. As of November 30th, there was short interest totalling 7,000,000 shares, a growth of 15.5% from the November 15th total of 6,060,000 shares. Based on an average trading volume of 2,020,000 shares, the days-to-cover ratio is presently 3.5 days.

VNET Group Stock Performance

VNET Group stock traded down $0.08 during midday trading on Monday, hitting $3.91. The stock had a trading volume of 665,066 shares, compared to its average volume of 1,600,803. The firm’s fifty day moving average is $3.73 and its two-hundred day moving average is $2.89. The company has a market capitalization of $1.01 billion, a PE ratio of -1.80 and a beta of -0.19. VNET Group has a 52-week low of $1.39 and a 52-week high of $4.50. The company has a current ratio of 0.83, a quick ratio of 0.83 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.46.

Institutional Investors Weigh In On VNET Group

A number of institutional investors have recently added to or reduced their stakes in VNET. Ballentine Partners LLC bought a new position in shares of VNET Group during the 2nd quarter valued at approximately $36,000. Wolverine Trading LLC bought a new position in shares of VNET Group during the 3rd quarter valued at approximately $46,000. AXA S.A. bought a new position in shares of VNET Group during the 2nd quarter valued at approximately $65,000. Walleye Capital LLC bought a new position in shares of VNET Group during the 3rd quarter valued at approximately $115,000. Finally, Blue Trust Inc. boosted its position in shares of VNET Group by 785.4% during the 3rd quarter. Blue Trust Inc. now owns 42,074 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $172,000 after acquiring an additional 37,322 shares during the last quarter. 72.83% of the stock is owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

A number of equities analysts have recently commented on the stock. StockNews.com upgraded shares of VNET Group from a “sell” rating to a “hold” rating in a research report on Wednesday, August 21st. Hsbc Global Res upgraded shares of VNET Group to a “strong-buy” rating in a report on Wednesday, October 9th. HSBC raised shares of VNET Group from a “hold” rating to a “buy” rating and set a $5.20 target price on the stock in a research note on Wednesday, October 9th. Citigroup assumed coverage on shares of VNET Group in a research note on Wednesday, September 4th. They issued a “buy” rating and a $4.00 target price on the stock. Finally, The Goldman Sachs Group raised shares of VNET Group from a “neutral” rating to a “buy” rating and boosted their price objective for the company from $3.10 to $5.00 in a research report on Friday, November 29th. One analyst has rated the stock with a hold rating, five have issued a buy rating and one has assigned a strong buy rating to the company. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, the company presently has an average rating of “Buy” and a consensus price target of $4.78.

VNET Group Company Profile

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.