Raymond James Financial Inc. Purchases New Stake in GDS Holdings Limited (NASDAQ:GDS)

Raymond James Financial Inc. purchased a new stake in shares of GDS Holdings Limited (NASDAQ:GDS) during the 4th quarter, HoldingsChannel.com reports. The institutional investor purchased 99,856 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $2,373,000.

Other institutional investors and hedge funds have also made changes to their positions in the company. Alberta Investment Management Corp acquired a new stake in shares of GDS during the 4th quarter valued at approximately $4,935,000. JPMorgan Chase & Co. increased its position in GDS by 7,553.4% in the third quarter. JPMorgan Chase & Co. now owns 610,821 shares of the company’s stock worth $12,461,000 after buying an additional 602,840 shares during the period. Y Intercept Hong Kong Ltd increased its position in GDS by 165.5% in the fourth quarter. Y Intercept Hong Kong Ltd now owns 54,127 shares of the company’s stock worth $1,286,000 after buying an additional 33,741 shares during the period. State of New Jersey Common Pension Fund D acquired a new stake in GDS in the fourth quarter worth $1,938,000. Finally, American Century Companies Inc. increased its position in GDS by 509.6% in 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. 33.71% of the stock is owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

GDS Price Performance

Shares of NASDAQ GDS opened at $23.84 on Wednesday. GDS Holdings Limited has a fifty-two week low of $7.35 and a fifty-two week high of $52.50. The firm’s 50-day simple moving average is $28.31 and its 200 day simple moving average is $25.19. The company has a quick ratio of 1.19, a current ratio of 1.19 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 2.25. The stock has a market cap of $4.54 billion, a P/E ratio of -7.82 and a beta of 0.23.

GDS (NASDAQ:GDS) last issued its quarterly earnings results on Wednesday, March 19th. The company reported ($0.10) earnings per share for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates 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 company had revenue of $425.13 million during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $3.11 billion. During the same period in the prior year, the company earned ($2.16) EPS. GDS’s revenue was up 9.1% on a year-over-year basis. Equities analysts expect that GDS Holdings Limited will post -0.89 EPS for the current year.

Wall Street Analyst Weigh In

Several equities research analysts have weighed in on GDS shares. Raymond James raised 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. Daiwa Capital Markets raised GDS from a “neutral” rating to a “buy” rating in a research report on Tuesday, February 11th. Jefferies Financial Group raised GDS from a “hold” rating to a “buy” rating and set a $45.00 target price on the stock in a research report on Tuesday, March 18th. JMP Securities set a $40.00 target price on GDS in a research report on Thursday, March 20th. Finally, Citizens Jmp upgraded shares of GDS to a “strong-buy” rating in a research note on Monday, January 27th. One analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, one has given a hold rating, five have issued a buy rating and three have given a strong buy rating to the company. Based on data from MarketBeat, the company presently has a consensus rating of “Buy” and an average price target of $39.48.

GDS 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.