Asset Management One Co. Ltd. Reduces Stock Holdings in StoneCo Ltd. (NASDAQ:STNE)

Asset Management One Co. Ltd. reduced its stake in StoneCo Ltd. (NASDAQ:STNE) by 28.9% during the 4th quarter, according to its most recent Form 13F filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission. The fund owned 3,497 shares of the company’s stock after selling 1,423 shares during the period. Asset Management One Co. Ltd.’s holdings in StoneCo were worth $64,000 as of its most recent SEC filing.

Other hedge funds also recently added to or reduced their stakes in the company. BlackRock Inc. grew its position in shares of StoneCo by 27.8% during the third quarter. BlackRock Inc. now owns 21,451,911 shares of the company’s stock worth $204,437,000 after acquiring an additional 4,666,575 shares during the last quarter. Nucleo Capital LTDA. grew its position in shares of StoneCo by 10.0% during the third quarter. Nucleo Capital LTDA. now owns 6,138,276 shares of the company’s stock worth $65,495,000 after acquiring an additional 557,186 shares during the last quarter. State Street Corp grew its position in shares of StoneCo by 5.4% during the second quarter. State Street Corp now owns 4,895,317 shares of the company’s stock worth $62,366,000 after acquiring an additional 251,888 shares during the last quarter. MFN Partners Management LP grew its position in shares of StoneCo by 100.0% during the first quarter. MFN Partners Management LP now owns 4,000,000 shares of the company’s stock worth $46,800,000 after acquiring an additional 2,000,000 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Teacher Retirement System of Texas grew its position in shares of StoneCo by 28.3% during the third quarter. Teacher Retirement System of Texas now owns 3,930,893 shares of the company’s stock worth $41,943,000 after acquiring an additional 866,803 shares during the last quarter. 73.19% of the stock is currently owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

Analyst Ratings Changes

A number of equities analysts have recently issued reports on the stock. The Goldman Sachs Group upgraded shares of StoneCo from a “neutral” rating to a “buy” rating and raised their target price for the stock from $12.00 to $21.00 in a research report on Monday, January 22nd. Citigroup increased their price target on StoneCo from $19.00 to $20.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a report on Wednesday, March 20th. Barclays increased their price target on StoneCo from $14.00 to $17.00 and gave the stock an “equal weight” rating in a report on Tuesday, January 16th. Finally, UBS Group downgraded StoneCo from a “buy” rating to a “neutral” rating and increased their price target for the stock from $18.00 to $21.00 in a report on Thursday, February 1st. Three equities research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and six have issued a buy rating to the stock. Based on data from MarketBeat, the company has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus target price of $18.80.

StoneCo Trading Down 3.1 %

StoneCo stock opened at $16.12 on Monday. The stock has a market cap of $5.07 billion, a PE ratio of 15.96 and a beta of 2.34. The stock has a 50-day moving average price of $16.90 and a 200 day moving average price of $15.23. StoneCo Ltd. has a 52 week low of $9.34 and a 52 week high of $19.46. The company has a current ratio of 1.27, a quick ratio of 1.27 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.25.

StoneCo (NASDAQ:STNE) last posted its quarterly earnings data on Monday, March 18th. The company reported $0.36 EPS for the quarter, topping analysts’ consensus estimates of $0.32 by $0.04. The firm had revenue of $655.87 million during the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $468.47 million. StoneCo had a return on equity of 11.23% and a net margin of 13.35%. Equities research analysts predict that StoneCo Ltd. will post 1.3 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

About StoneCo

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.