Daiwa Securities Group Inc. Takes $233,000 Position in StoneCo Ltd. (NASDAQ:STNE)

Daiwa Securities Group Inc. purchased a new stake in shares of StoneCo Ltd. (NASDAQ:STNE) during the 4th quarter, HoldingsChannel reports. The fund purchased 12,945 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $233,000.

Other hedge funds also recently modified their holdings of the company. Nucleo Capital LTDA. boosted its stake in shares of StoneCo by 10.0% during the 3rd 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 in the last quarter. Teacher Retirement System of Texas boosted its stake in shares of StoneCo by 28.3% during the 3rd 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 in the last quarter. Robeco Institutional Asset Management B.V. boosted its stake in shares of StoneCo by 72.6% during the 3rd quarter. Robeco Institutional Asset Management B.V. now owns 2,969,463 shares of the company’s stock worth $31,684,000 after acquiring an additional 1,249,463 shares in the last quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. boosted its stake in shares of StoneCo by 17.5% during the 3rd quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 2,672,681 shares of the company’s stock worth $28,518,000 after acquiring an additional 397,101 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Federated Hermes Inc. boosted its stake in shares of StoneCo by 10.4% during the 3rd quarter. Federated Hermes Inc. now owns 2,641,044 shares of the company’s stock worth $28,180,000 after acquiring an additional 249,020 shares in the last quarter. 73.19% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

Several equities research analysts have recently weighed in on STNE shares. Barclays raised their price objective on StoneCo from $14.00 to $17.00 and gave the stock an “equal weight” rating in a research note on Tuesday, January 16th. Susquehanna reduced their price objective on StoneCo from $23.00 to $22.00 and set a “positive” rating for the company in a research note on Friday, April 19th. UBS Group cut StoneCo from a “buy” rating to a “neutral” rating and raised their target price for the stock from $18.00 to $21.00 in a research report on Thursday, February 1st. The Goldman Sachs Group raised 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. Finally, Citigroup raised their target price on StoneCo from $19.00 to $20.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a research report on Wednesday, March 20th. Three research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and seven have issued a buy rating to the company’s stock. According to MarketBeat, StoneCo currently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus price target of $19.00.

StoneCo Price Performance

STNE opened at $16.35 on Friday. The stock has a market cap of $5.14 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 16.19, a PEG ratio of 0.60 and a beta of 2.34. StoneCo Ltd. has a 1 year low of $9.34 and a 1 year 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. The stock has a fifty day moving average price of $16.50 and a 200 day moving average price of $15.52.

StoneCo (NASDAQ:STNE) last released its quarterly earnings data on Monday, March 18th. The company reported $0.36 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating 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%. Analysts forecast that StoneCo Ltd. will post 1.27 EPS for the current fiscal 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.