Assenagon Asset Management S.A. Decreases Stock Holdings in StoneCo Ltd. $STNE

Assenagon Asset Management S.A. reduced its position in shares of StoneCo Ltd. (NASDAQ:STNE) by 96.4% in the fourth quarter, according to its most recent filing with the SEC. The fund owned 21,614 shares of the company’s stock after selling 574,465 shares during the quarter. Assenagon Asset Management S.A.’s holdings in StoneCo were worth $320,000 at the end of the most recent reporting period.

A number of other institutional investors and hedge funds have also recently modified their holdings of STNE. Ninety One UK Ltd increased its holdings in shares of StoneCo by 218.4% in the 3rd quarter. Ninety One UK Ltd now owns 4,234,251 shares of the company’s stock worth $80,070,000 after buying an additional 2,904,432 shares during the last quarter. Alta Wealth Advisors LLC bought a new position in shares of StoneCo in the 3rd quarter valued at about $1,631,000. Truxt Investmentos Ltda. purchased a new position in StoneCo in the third quarter worth about $12,116,000. Jain Global LLC grew its position in StoneCo by 381.1% in the third quarter. Jain Global LLC now owns 769,596 shares of the company’s stock worth $14,553,000 after acquiring an additional 609,627 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Vanguard Group Inc. increased its stake in StoneCo by 23.6% during the third quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 3,330,177 shares of the company’s stock worth $62,974,000 after acquiring an additional 635,677 shares during the last quarter. 73.19% of the stock is owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

A number of brokerages have issued reports on STNE. Weiss Ratings upgraded StoneCo from a “sell (d+)” rating to a “hold (c)” rating in a research report on Thursday, March 5th. UBS Group cut their target price on StoneCo from $19.50 to $19.00 and set a “buy” rating on the stock in a research report on Wednesday, March 11th. BTIG Research restated a “buy” rating and set a $22.00 price target on shares of StoneCo in a report on Tuesday, March 3rd. Santander downgraded StoneCo from an “outperform” rating to a “neutral” rating in a research report on Thursday, January 29th. Finally, The Goldman Sachs Group dropped their price objective on shares of StoneCo from $22.00 to $19.00 and set a “buy” rating for the company in a research note on Tuesday, January 27th. Six equities research analysts have rated the stock with a Buy rating and four have assigned a Hold rating to the company. According to data from MarketBeat, StoneCo presently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus price target of $19.07.

StoneCo Stock Up 1.7%

Shares of NASDAQ STNE opened at $14.36 on Thursday. StoneCo Ltd. has a 1 year low of $9.83 and a 1 year high of $19.95. The firm has a 50-day simple moving average of $15.55 and a two-hundred day simple moving average of $16.27. The company has a market cap of $4.11 billion, a P/E ratio of 9.39, a PEG ratio of 0.31 and a beta of 1.78. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.81, a current ratio of 1.37 and a quick ratio of 1.43.

StoneCo (NASDAQ:STNE) last released its earnings results on Monday, March 2nd. The company reported $0.50 EPS for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $0.48 by $0.02. StoneCo had a return on equity of 21.55% and a net margin of 15.38%.The firm had revenue of $675.42 million for the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $704.26 million. Research analysts anticipate that StoneCo Ltd. will post 1.16 earnings per share for the current year.

StoneCo Profile

StoneCo Ltd., commonly known as Stone, is a Brazilian financial technology company that provides integrated digital payment solutions and related financial services to merchants. Through its cloud-based platform, Stone enables businesses of all sizes to accept a variety of payment methods, including point-of-sale (POS) terminals, mobile card readers and e-commerce gateways. In addition to payment acceptance, the company offers value-added services such as working capital loans, digital banking products and automated billing tools designed to help merchants manage cash flow and streamline operations.

Since its founding in 2012 by André Street and Eduardo Pontes, Stone has focused on serving over half a million merchants across Brazil’s retail, restaurant and services sectors.