GDS (NASDAQ:GDS) Shares Gap Up – Time to Buy?

GDS Holdings Limited (NASDAQ:GDS) gapped up prior to trading on Monday . The stock had previously closed at $25.45, but opened at $28.11. GDS shares last traded at $27.81, with a volume of 379,260 shares traded.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

GDS has been the subject of several recent analyst reports. StockNews.com downgraded shares of GDS from a “hold” rating to a “sell” rating in a report on Friday, February 28th. Raymond James raised shares of GDS from an “outperform” rating to a “strong-buy” rating and set a $53.00 target price on the stock in a research report on Thursday, March 20th. JMP Securities set a $40.00 target price on shares of GDS in a research report on Thursday, March 20th. Citizens Jmp upgraded GDS to a “strong-buy” rating in a research note on Monday, January 27th. Finally, Jefferies Financial Group upgraded GDS from a “hold” rating to a “buy” rating and set a $45.00 price target on the stock in a research note on Tuesday, March 18th. One analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, one has assigned a hold rating, five have issued a buy rating and three have assigned a strong buy rating to the company. According to MarketBeat, GDS has a consensus rating of “Buy” and an average target price of $39.48.

GDS Stock Up 15.8%

The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 2.25, a quick ratio of 1.19 and a current ratio of 1.19. The firm has a market cap of $5.61 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of -9.72 and a beta of 0.28. The firm has a 50-day moving average price of $26.43 and a two-hundred day moving average price of $25.49.

GDS (NASDAQ:GDS) last released its earnings results on Wednesday, March 19th. The company reported ($0.10) earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of ($0.27) by $0.17. The business had revenue of $425.13 million for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $3.11 billion. GDS had a negative return on equity of 8.22% and a negative net margin of 35.97%. The company’s revenue for the quarter was up 9.1% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same quarter in the previous year, the company posted ($2.16) earnings per share. On average, sell-side analysts forecast that GDS Holdings Limited will post -0.89 earnings per share for the current year.

Institutional Trading of GDS

Several institutional investors and hedge funds have recently made changes to their positions in the stock. PNC Financial Services Group Inc. lifted its position in GDS by 26.8% during the fourth quarter. PNC Financial Services Group Inc. now owns 3,177 shares of the company’s stock worth $75,000 after buying an additional 672 shares during the period. Wells Fargo & Company MN grew its stake in shares of GDS by 1,904.2% in the fourth quarter. Wells Fargo & Company MN now owns 3,788 shares of the company’s stock valued at $90,000 after buying an additional 3,599 shares in the last quarter. Blue Trust Inc. grew its stake in shares of GDS by 121.9% in the fourth quarter. Blue Trust Inc. now owns 5,557 shares of the company’s stock valued at $132,000 after buying an additional 3,053 shares in the last quarter. Harvest Fund Management Co. Ltd acquired a new stake in GDS during the 1st quarter valued at approximately $176,000. Finally, LPL Financial LLC acquired a new stake in GDS during the 4th quarter valued at approximately $310,000. 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.