Traders Buy Large Volume of Put Options on GDS (NASDAQ:GDS)

GDS Holdings Limited (NASDAQ:GDS) was the target of unusually large options trading activity on Monday. Stock investors bought 3,259 put options on the stock. This represents an increase of 84% compared to the average daily volume of 1,776 put options.

Institutional Trading of GDS

Several hedge funds have recently bought and sold shares of the stock. Baupost Group LLC MA bought a new position in shares of GDS in the first quarter worth approximately $17,290,000. Farallon Capital Management LLC bought a new position in GDS in the 1st quarter worth $4,722,000. Bamco Inc. NY purchased a new stake in GDS in the 1st quarter worth $2,896,000. Swedbank AB bought a new stake in GDS during the first quarter valued at about $2,174,000. Finally, Cubist Systematic Strategies LLC lifted its position in shares of GDS by 921.7% in the second quarter. Cubist Systematic Strategies LLC now owns 112,568 shares of the company’s stock valued at $1,046,000 after acquiring an additional 126,268 shares in the last quarter. Institutional investors own 33.71% of the company’s stock.

GDS Trading Down 5.1 %

Shares of GDS stock opened at $22.59 on Wednesday. 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 has a 12-month low of $5.01 and a 12-month high of $24.74. The stock has a market capitalization of $4.30 billion, a P/E ratio of -7.41 and a beta of 0.23. The firm’s 50 day moving average is $20.38 and its 200 day moving average is $13.96.

GDS (NASDAQ:GDS) last posted its earnings results on Wednesday, August 21st. The company reported ($0.18) earnings per share for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of ($0.25) by $0.07. The company had revenue of $388.92 million for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $384.14 million. GDS had a negative return on equity of 9.10% and a negative net margin of 39.96%. Research analysts expect that GDS will post -1.14 earnings per share for the current year.

Wall Street Analyst Weigh In

GDS has been the topic of a number of recent research reports. Bank of America upped their target price on shares of GDS from $12.40 to $22.40 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a research report on Tuesday, August 27th. Nomura Securities upgraded shares of GDS to a “strong-buy” rating in a report on Monday, August 26th. Finally, Royal Bank of Canada lifted their target price on shares of GDS from $14.00 to $26.00 and gave the company an “outperform” rating in a report on Monday, October 14th. One equities research analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, one has assigned a hold rating, three have issued a buy rating and one has given a strong buy rating to the company. According to MarketBeat.com, GDS has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $18.29.

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.