Investors Buy High Volume of StoneCo Call Options (NASDAQ:STNE)

StoneCo Ltd. (NASDAQ:STNE) saw unusually large options trading on Wednesday. Traders acquired 8,575 call options on the stock. This is an increase of 41% compared to the average daily volume of 6,092 call options.

Analyst Ratings Changes

Several research firms have recently weighed in on STNE. The Goldman Sachs Group reduced their price objective on StoneCo from $16.00 to $14.00 and set a “buy” rating for the company in a research report on Thursday, February 6th. Barclays dropped their price objective on StoneCo from $12.00 to $10.00 and set an “equal weight” rating on the stock in a research note on Wednesday, January 29th. JPMorgan Chase & Co. dropped their price objective on StoneCo from $21.00 to $15.00 and set an “overweight” rating on the stock in a research note on Monday, December 16th. Finally, Citigroup restated a “neutral” rating and issued a $9.00 price objective (down previously from $19.00) on shares of StoneCo in a research note on Thursday, January 16th. One investment analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, two have assigned a hold rating, five have issued a buy rating and one has issued a strong buy rating to the stock. According to data from MarketBeat.com, StoneCo has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus price target of $14.38.

Institutional Inflows and Outflows

A number of large investors have recently modified their holdings of STNE. Jones Financial Companies Lllp lifted its stake in shares of StoneCo by 254.7% in the 4th quarter. Jones Financial Companies Lllp now owns 4,256 shares of the company’s stock valued at $34,000 after acquiring an additional 3,056 shares during the last quarter. Sterling Capital Management LLC grew its position in shares of StoneCo by 627.0% in the 4th quarter. Sterling Capital Management LLC now owns 4,551 shares of the company’s stock valued at $36,000 after buying an additional 3,925 shares during the last quarter. Newbridge Financial Services Group Inc. grew its position in shares of StoneCo by 166.7% in the 4th quarter. Newbridge Financial Services Group Inc. now owns 6,400 shares of the company’s stock valued at $51,000 after buying an additional 4,000 shares during the last quarter. SBI Securities Co. Ltd. bought a new stake in shares of StoneCo in the 4th quarter valued at about $56,000. Finally, Skandinaviska Enskilda Banken AB publ grew its position in shares of StoneCo by 31.6% in the 4th quarter. Skandinaviska Enskilda Banken AB publ now owns 7,500 shares of the company’s stock valued at $59,000 after buying an additional 1,800 shares during the last quarter. 73.19% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors.

StoneCo Price Performance

Shares of STNE stock traded up $1.39 during trading hours on Wednesday, reaching $11.24. The company’s stock had a trading volume of 10,606,197 shares, compared to its average volume of 5,453,176. The firm’s 50 day simple moving average is $9.16 and its 200-day simple moving average is $9.96. The company has a market capitalization of $3.47 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 8.86, a PEG ratio of 0.41 and a beta of 2.33. StoneCo has a fifty-two week low of $7.72 and a fifty-two week high of $17.93. The company has a quick ratio of 1.42, a current ratio of 1.42 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.47.

StoneCo (NASDAQ:STNE) last issued its earnings results on Tuesday, March 18th. The company reported $0.39 earnings per share for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $0.32 by $0.07. StoneCo had a return on equity of 13.92% and a net margin of 16.02%. The firm had revenue of $582.20 million for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $3.59 billion. Sell-side analysts forecast that StoneCo will post 1.16 earnings per share for the current year.

StoneCo Company Profile

StoneCo Ltd. provides financial technology and software solutions to merchants and integrated partners to conduct electronic commerce across in-store, online, and mobile channels in Brazil. It distributes its solutions, principally through proprietary Stone Hubs, which offer hyper-local sales and services; and sells solutions to brick-and-mortar and digital merchants through sales team.