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

GDS Holdings Limited (NASDAQ:GDS) was the target of a large increase in short interest in June. As of June 15th, there was short interest totalling 9,650,000 shares, an increase of 6.5% from the May 31st total of 9,060,000 shares. Based on an average daily volume of 1,530,000 shares, the days-to-cover ratio is currently 6.3 days. Currently, 5.5% of the company’s stock are sold short.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

GDS has been the topic of several research analyst reports. StockNews.com upgraded GDS to a “sell” rating in a research note on Thursday, March 21st. JPMorgan Chase & Co. decreased their target price on GDS from $12.00 to $7.00 and set a “neutral” rating for the company in a research report on Thursday, March 28th. One research analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, two have issued a hold rating and two have assigned a buy rating to the company. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, the stock presently has an average rating of “Hold” and an average target price of $12.58.

Institutional Inflows and Outflows

A number of institutional investors have recently added to or reduced their stakes in the stock. Canada Pension Plan Investment Board lifted its stake in GDS by 0.4% in the first quarter. Canada Pension Plan Investment Board now owns 9,713,325 shares of the company’s stock valued at $64,594,000 after buying an additional 33,978 shares during the last quarter. Goldman Sachs Group Inc. lifted its position in GDS by 16.7% in the 4th quarter. Goldman Sachs Group Inc. now owns 5,404,486 shares of the company’s stock valued at $49,289,000 after purchasing an additional 773,378 shares during the last quarter. Baupost Group LLC MA bought a new stake in GDS in the 1st quarter valued at about $17,290,000. Massachusetts Financial Services Co. MA boosted its stake in GDS by 4.1% during the 4th quarter. Massachusetts Financial Services Co. MA now owns 1,696,842 shares of the company’s stock valued at $15,475,000 after purchasing an additional 66,456 shares during the period. Finally, Cerity Partners LLC bought a new position in GDS in the 4th quarter worth about $13,928,000. 33.71% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors.

GDS Price Performance

NASDAQ GDS opened at $10.15 on Wednesday. The company has a quick ratio of 1.13, a current ratio of 1.13 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 2.25. GDS has a one year low of $5.01 and a one year high of $14.24. The company has a 50-day simple moving average of $8.54 and a 200-day simple moving average of $7.56.

GDS (NASDAQ:GDS) last issued its earnings results on Wednesday, May 22nd. The company reported ($0.27) EPS for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of ($0.33) by $0.06. The company had revenue of $363.89 million during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $366.92 million. GDS had a negative return on equity of 8.70% and a negative net margin of 41.33%. Equities analysts forecast that GDS will post -1.25 earnings per share for the current year.

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.