StoneCo (NASDAQ:STNE) Upgraded by Wall Street Zen to Buy Rating

StoneCo (NASDAQ:STNE) was upgraded by analysts at Wall Street Zen from a “hold” rating to a “buy” rating in a research note issued to investors on Sunday.

Several other brokerages have also recently commented on STNE. UBS Group boosted their target price on StoneCo from $15.00 to $20.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a report on Friday, August 29th. Weiss Ratings reissued a “sell (d+)” rating on shares of StoneCo in a report on Wednesday, October 8th. Zacks Research raised StoneCo to a “strong-buy” rating in a report on Tuesday, August 12th. The Goldman Sachs Group boosted their target price on StoneCo from $19.00 to $21.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a report on Tuesday, October 14th. Finally, Bank of America boosted their target price on StoneCo from $15.00 to $25.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a report on Tuesday, September 9th. One research analyst has rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, eight have assigned a Buy rating, one has assigned a Hold rating and two have assigned a Sell rating to the company’s stock. According to MarketBeat.com, the stock presently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus target price of $17.44.

StoneCo Stock Performance

STNE opened at $17.86 on Friday. The business’s 50 day moving average is $17.24 and its 200-day moving average is $14.92. The stock has a market cap of $5.11 billion, a PE ratio of -25.51, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 0.36 and a beta of 1.99. The company has a current ratio of 1.48, a quick ratio of 1.48 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.76. StoneCo has a twelve month low of $7.72 and a twelve month high of $19.95.

StoneCo (NASDAQ:STNE) last released its quarterly earnings results on Thursday, August 7th. The company reported $0.39 earnings per share for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $0.36 by $0.03. The company had revenue of $643.82 million for the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $3.78 billion. StoneCo had a positive return on equity of 18.71% and a negative net margin of 8.37%. On average, analysts predict that StoneCo will post 1.16 earnings per share for the current year.

Institutional Inflows and Outflows

Several institutional investors have recently modified their holdings of STNE. Nuveen LLC bought a new position in shares of StoneCo in the first quarter valued at $70,502,000. JGP Global Gestao de Recursos Ltda. grew its position in StoneCo by 484.8% during the 1st quarter. JGP Global Gestao de Recursos Ltda. now owns 4,472,738 shares of the company’s stock worth $46,874,000 after purchasing an additional 3,707,941 shares in the last quarter. Norges Bank purchased a new position in StoneCo during the 2nd quarter worth approximately $44,366,000. Azora Capital LP grew its position in StoneCo by 88.2% during the 2nd quarter. Azora Capital LP now owns 4,863,331 shares of the company’s stock worth $78,008,000 after purchasing an additional 2,279,821 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Tekne Capital Management LLC purchased a new position in StoneCo during the 2nd quarter worth approximately $35,288,000. Institutional investors own 73.19% of the company’s stock.

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.