Itau Unibanco Holding S.A. Acquires 949,671 Shares of StoneCo Ltd. (NASDAQ:STNE)

Itau Unibanco Holding S.A. increased its holdings in shares of StoneCo Ltd. (NASDAQ:STNE) by 327.2% during the 2nd quarter, HoldingsChannel reports. The fund owned 1,239,957 shares of the company’s stock after buying an additional 949,671 shares during the period. Itau Unibanco Holding S.A.’s holdings in StoneCo were worth $14,867,000 as of its most recent SEC filing.

Several other hedge funds have also bought and sold shares of the business. Corient Private Wealth LLC increased its stake in shares of StoneCo by 2.1% during the fourth quarter. Corient Private Wealth LLC now owns 33,227 shares of the company’s stock valued at $599,000 after purchasing an additional 692 shares in the last quarter. Financial Perspectives Inc grew its stake in shares of StoneCo by 8.4% in the 2nd quarter. Financial Perspectives Inc now owns 14,019 shares of the company’s stock worth $168,000 after buying an additional 1,083 shares during the last quarter. TrinityPoint Wealth LLC increased its position in StoneCo by 11.1% during the 4th quarter. TrinityPoint Wealth LLC now owns 11,696 shares of the company’s stock valued at $211,000 after buying an additional 1,167 shares in the last quarter. Stokes Family Office LLC raised its stake in StoneCo by 16.8% during the first quarter. Stokes Family Office LLC now owns 14,600 shares of the company’s stock valued at $243,000 after buying an additional 2,100 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Benjamin F. Edwards & Company Inc. boosted its holdings in StoneCo by 152.1% in the first quarter. Benjamin F. Edwards & Company Inc. now owns 3,497 shares of the company’s stock worth $58,000 after acquiring an additional 2,110 shares in the last quarter. Institutional investors own 73.19% of the company’s stock.

Analyst Ratings Changes

Several equities analysts have recently weighed in on STNE shares. JPMorgan Chase & Co. upgraded StoneCo from a “neutral” rating to an “overweight” rating and set a $20.00 price target for the company in a report on Thursday, June 6th. Morgan Stanley restated an “underweight” rating and set a $7.00 price objective (down from $16.50) on shares of StoneCo in a research note on Thursday, September 5th. Evercore ISI dropped their target price on shares of StoneCo from $25.00 to $23.00 and set an “outperform” rating on the stock in a research note on Tuesday, June 25th. UBS Group increased their price target on shares of StoneCo from $17.00 to $18.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a report on Thursday, August 29th. Finally, The Goldman Sachs Group decreased their price objective on shares of StoneCo from $21.00 to $15.00 and set a “buy” rating for the company in a report on Wednesday, June 26th. One equities research analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, one has assigned a hold rating and eight have issued a buy rating to the stock. Based on data from MarketBeat, StoneCo presently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average price target of $17.80.

StoneCo Stock Performance

Shares of STNE stock opened at $11.30 on Friday. The company has a quick ratio of 1.36, a current ratio of 1.36 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.41. The company has a 50 day moving average price of $12.97 and a 200-day moving average price of $14.21. StoneCo Ltd. has a 52 week low of $9.34 and a 52 week high of $19.46. The firm has a market capitalization of $3.49 billion, a PE ratio of 10.18, a P/E/G ratio of 0.44 and a beta of 2.31.

StoneCo (NASDAQ:STNE) last posted its earnings results on Wednesday, August 14th. The company reported $0.30 EPS for the quarter, missing analysts’ consensus estimates of $0.34 by ($0.04). The company had revenue of $615.13 million during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $590.74 million. StoneCo had a return on equity of 13.21% and a net margin of 15.27%. As a group, equities research analysts expect that StoneCo Ltd. will post 1.1 earnings per share for the current 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.