GDS (NASDAQ:GDS) Rating Increased to Strong-Buy at Raymond James

Raymond James upgraded shares of GDS (NASDAQ:GDS) from an outperform rating to a strong-buy rating in a report released on Thursday, Marketbeat reports. The brokerage currently has $53.00 target price on the stock.

A number of other brokerages also recently issued reports on GDS. StockNews.com downgraded GDS from a “hold” rating to a “sell” rating in a research note on Friday, February 28th. Royal Bank of Canada downgraded GDS from an “outperform” rating to a “sector perform” rating and raised their price objective for the stock from $26.00 to $37.00 in a research report on Tuesday, February 25th. Jefferies Financial Group raised GDS from a “hold” rating to a “buy” rating and set a $45.00 price objective for the company in a research report on Tuesday. Citizens Jmp raised GDS to a “strong-buy” rating in a research report on Monday, January 27th. Finally, JMP Securities initiated coverage on GDS in a research report on Monday, January 27th. They set an “outperform” rating and a $35.00 price objective for the company. One research analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, two have given a hold rating, four have issued a buy rating and three have issued a strong buy rating to the stock. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, the company currently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average price target of $33.23.

GDS Stock Down 6.5 %

Shares of GDS opened at $28.62 on Thursday. GDS has a 52-week low of $5.85 and a 52-week high of $52.50. The company has a market capitalization of $5.45 billion, a PE ratio of -9.38 and a beta of 0.06. The stock has a fifty day simple moving average of $31.32 and a two-hundred day simple moving average of $24.44. The company has a quick ratio of 1.19, a current ratio of 1.19 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 2.25.

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

Hedge Funds Weigh In On GDS

A number of hedge funds and other institutional investors have recently bought and sold shares of the company. Bamco Inc. NY boosted its holdings in GDS by 10.5% during the 4th quarter. Bamco Inc. NY now owns 6,673,226 shares of the company’s stock valued at $158,556,000 after acquiring an additional 632,671 shares during the period. Aspex Management HK Ltd lifted its stake in GDS by 23.0% during the fourth quarter. Aspex Management HK Ltd now owns 4,926,727 shares of the company’s stock worth $117,059,000 after purchasing an additional 922,709 shares during the last quarter. Sachem Head Capital Management LP lifted its stake in GDS by 161.6% during the third quarter. Sachem Head Capital Management LP now owns 2,825,000 shares of the company’s stock worth $57,630,000 after purchasing an additional 1,745,000 shares during the last quarter. 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. Finally, Driehaus Capital Management LLC increased its position in GDS by 195.6% during the fourth quarter. Driehaus Capital Management LLC now owns 1,845,623 shares of the company’s stock worth $43,852,000 after buying an additional 1,221,289 shares during the period. 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.