GDS Holdings Limited (NASDAQ:GDS) Sees Significant Increase in Short Interest

GDS Holdings Limited (NASDAQ:GDS) saw a large growth in short interest in September. As of September 15th, there was short interest totalling 7,450,000 shares, a growth of 6.6% from the August 31st total of 6,990,000 shares. Based on an average daily trading volume, of 1,600,000 shares, the short-interest ratio is presently 4.7 days. Approximately 4.2% of the shares of the stock are sold short.

Institutional Investors Weigh In On GDS

Institutional investors have recently bought and sold shares of the business. BNP Paribas Financial Markets increased its stake in shares of GDS by 51.0% in the first quarter. BNP Paribas Financial Markets now owns 185,137 shares of the company’s stock worth $1,231,000 after acquiring an additional 62,521 shares during the last quarter. Swedbank AB purchased a new position in GDS in the first quarter valued at about $2,174,000. Wellington Management Group LLP grew its stake in GDS by 258.1% in the fourth quarter. Wellington Management Group LLP now owns 608,625 shares of the company’s stock valued at $5,551,000 after purchasing an additional 438,661 shares in the last quarter. Goldman Sachs Group Inc. raised its stake in shares of GDS by 16.7% during the 4th quarter. Goldman Sachs Group Inc. now owns 5,404,486 shares of the company’s stock worth $49,289,000 after purchasing an additional 773,378 shares in the last quarter. Finally, SG Americas Securities LLC acquired a new stake in shares of GDS during the 1st quarter valued at about $429,000. 33.71% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

Wall Street Analyst Weigh In

A number of equities research analysts have weighed in on the stock. Nomura Securities raised shares of GDS to a “strong-buy” rating in a report on Monday, August 26th. Bank of America boosted their target price on shares of GDS from $12.40 to $22.40 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a report on Tuesday, August 27th. Finally, Royal Bank of Canada upgraded shares of GDS from a “sector perform” rating to an “outperform” rating and raised their target price for the stock from $13.00 to $14.00 in a report on Monday, July 8th. One equities research analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, one has given a hold rating, three have issued a buy rating and one has given a strong buy rating to the company. Based on data from MarketBeat, the stock currently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus price target of $15.29.

GDS Trading Up 9.7 %

GDS stock traded up $1.98 during mid-day trading on Tuesday, reaching $22.38. 2,142,481 shares of the stock traded hands, compared to its average volume of 1,625,357. GDS has a 52-week low of $5.01 and a 52-week high of $22.77. The stock’s fifty day moving average is $15.03 and its 200-day moving average is $10.85. The company has a market cap of $4.26 billion, a P/E ratio of -6.89 and a beta of 0.24. The company has a current ratio of 1.39, a quick 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) EPS for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate 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 business had revenue of $388.92 million during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $384.14 million. As a group, sell-side analysts expect that GDS will post -1.14 earnings per share for the current year.

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.