GDS (NASDAQ:GDS) Shares Gap Up – Here’s What Happened

GDS Holdings Limited (NASDAQ:GDS) gapped up before the market opened on Wednesday . The stock had previously closed at $25.21, but opened at $26.12. GDS shares last traded at $26.15, with a volume of 235,365 shares changing hands.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

Several brokerages have weighed in on GDS. Daiwa Capital Markets raised GDS from a “neutral” rating to a “buy” rating in a research report on Tuesday, February 11th. Raymond James upgraded GDS from an “outperform” rating to a “strong-buy” rating and set a $53.00 price target for the company in a research report on Thursday, March 20th. Royal Bank of Canada lowered GDS from an “outperform” rating to a “sector perform” rating and upped their price objective for the stock from $26.00 to $37.00 in a research report on Tuesday, February 25th. Jefferies Financial Group upgraded shares of GDS from a “hold” rating to a “buy” rating and set a $45.00 target price for the company in a research note on Tuesday, March 18th. Finally, JMP Securities set a $40.00 price target on shares of GDS in a research note on Thursday, March 20th. One equities research analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, one has issued a hold rating, five have given a buy rating and three have given a strong buy rating to the company’s stock. According to data from MarketBeat.com, GDS presently has a consensus rating of “Buy” and an average target price of $39.48.

GDS Price Performance

The company has a market capitalization of $5.00 billion, a PE ratio of -8.63 and a beta of 0.07. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 2.25, a current ratio of 1.19 and a quick ratio of 1.19. The company’s 50 day simple moving average is $31.88 and its 200 day simple moving average is $25.09.

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

Institutional Trading of GDS

A number of large investors have recently made changes to their positions in GDS. American Century Companies Inc. increased its position in GDS by 509.6% during the fourth quarter. American Century Companies Inc. now owns 2,323,482 shares of the company’s stock worth $55,206,000 after buying an additional 1,942,341 shares during the period. Triata Capital Ltd acquired a new position in shares of GDS in the 4th quarter valued at $41,472,000. Sachem Head Capital Management LP raised its position in GDS by 161.6% in the 3rd quarter. Sachem Head Capital Management LP now owns 2,825,000 shares of the company’s stock valued at $57,630,000 after purchasing an additional 1,745,000 shares during the last quarter. Portolan Capital Management LLC purchased a new position in GDS during the 3rd quarter worth $26,572,000. Finally, Driehaus Capital Management LLC raised its holdings in shares of GDS by 195.6% in the fourth quarter. Driehaus Capital Management LLC now owns 1,845,623 shares of the company’s stock valued at $43,852,000 after buying an additional 1,221,289 shares during the last quarter. 33.71% of the stock is owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

GDS Company Profile

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.