Goldman Sachs Group Inc. Reduces Stake in StoneCo Ltd. (NASDAQ:STNE)

Goldman Sachs Group Inc. reduced its position in StoneCo Ltd. (NASDAQ:STNE) by 14.7% in the 4th quarter, according to its most recent filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). The institutional investor owned 1,824,184 shares of the company’s stock after selling 314,435 shares during the period. Goldman Sachs Group Inc. owned about 0.58% of StoneCo worth $32,890,000 as of its most recent SEC filing.

Several other hedge funds have also recently bought and sold shares of STNE. Norges Bank purchased a new position in StoneCo during the fourth quarter worth $58,777,000. Federated Hermes Inc. increased its position in StoneCo by 4.8% during the fourth quarter. Federated Hermes Inc. now owns 2,766,712 shares of the company’s stock worth $49,884,000 after buying an additional 125,668 shares in the last quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. increased its position in StoneCo by 17.5% during the third quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 2,672,681 shares of the company’s stock worth $28,518,000 after buying an additional 397,101 shares in the last quarter. UBS Group AG increased its position in StoneCo by 14.5% during the fourth quarter. UBS Group AG now owns 2,001,221 shares of the company’s stock worth $36,082,000 after buying an additional 253,276 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Qube Research & Technologies Ltd increased its position in StoneCo by 103.8% during the third quarter. Qube Research & Technologies Ltd now owns 1,234,520 shares of the company’s stock worth $13,172,000 after buying an additional 628,698 shares in the last quarter. 73.19% of the stock is owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

A number of equities research analysts have recently commented on the company. JPMorgan Chase & Co. raised StoneCo from a “neutral” rating to an “overweight” rating and set a $20.00 price objective for the company in a research report on Thursday, June 6th. Citigroup lifted their price objective on StoneCo from $19.00 to $20.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a research report on Wednesday, March 20th. Susquehanna reduced their target price on StoneCo from $23.00 to $22.00 and set a “positive” rating on the stock in a report on Friday, April 19th. Finally, Barclays reduced their target price on StoneCo from $17.00 to $16.00 and set an “equal weight” rating on the stock in a report on Monday, May 20th. Two equities research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and seven have given a buy rating to the company’s stock. According to MarketBeat.com, the company presently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $20.11.

StoneCo Trading Down 1.9 %

Shares of STNE opened at $11.72 on Friday. The stock’s 50-day moving average is $14.57 and its two-hundred day moving average is $16.22. The stock has a market cap of $3.68 billion, a PE ratio of 10.56, a P/E/G ratio of 0.32 and a beta of 2.36. StoneCo Ltd. has a 12 month low of $9.34 and a 12 month high of $19.46. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.25, a current ratio of 1.36 and a quick ratio of 1.36.

StoneCo (NASDAQ:STNE) last issued its quarterly earnings data on Monday, May 13th. The company reported $0.29 EPS for the quarter, topping analysts’ consensus estimates of $0.28 by $0.01. StoneCo had a return on equity of 12.35% and a net margin of 14.08%. The company had revenue of $623.12 million for the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $633.35 million. Equities analysts forecast that StoneCo Ltd. will post 1.43 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

StoneCo 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.