Stock Traders Buy Large Volume of Call Options on StoneCo (NASDAQ:STNE)

StoneCo Ltd. (NASDAQ:STNE) saw some unusual options trading on Thursday. Investors acquired 9,965 call options on the company. This represents an increase of 186% compared to the typical volume of 3,482 call options.

Insider Activity

In related news, Director Silvio Morais sold 21,000 shares of StoneCo stock in a transaction dated Wednesday, September 2nd. The stock was sold at an average price of $9.91, for a total value of $208,110.00. The transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which can be accessed through this link. 11.25% of the stock is owned by corporate insiders.

Institutional Trading of StoneCo

Several institutional investors and hedge funds have recently made changes to their positions in STNE. SPX Gestao de Recursos Ltda grew its holdings in StoneCo by 47.6% during the first quarter. SPX Gestao de Recursos Ltda now owns 7,728,014 shares of the company’s stock valued at $109,120,000 after purchasing an additional 2,491,394 shares during the period. BRC Global BAH Investments Ltd. increased its stake in StoneCo by 32.7% in the first quarter. BRC Global BAH Investments Ltd. now owns 7,580,409 shares of the company’s stock valued at $107,035,000 after purchasing an additional 1,867,018 shares in the last quarter. Squadra Investments Gestao DE Recursos LTDA. raised its holdings in StoneCo by 435.5% in the first quarter. Squadra Investments Gestao DE Recursos LTDA. now owns 6,662,253 shares of the company’s stock worth $94,071,000 after purchasing an additional 5,418,053 shares during the period. Bank of America Corp DE raised its holdings in StoneCo by 151.7% in the first quarter. Bank of America Corp DE now owns 6,032,572 shares of the company’s stock worth $85,180,000 after purchasing an additional 3,636,276 shares during the period. Finally, Robeco Institutional Asset Management B.V. raised its holdings in StoneCo by 559.3% in the third quarter. Robeco Institutional Asset Management B.V. now owns 6,885,009 shares of the company’s stock worth $64,306,000 after purchasing an additional 5,840,741 shares during the period. Institutional investors own 73.19% of the company’s stock.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

A number of brokerages have recently issued reports on STNE. Weiss Ratings upgraded shares of StoneCo from a “hold (c-)” rating to a “hold (c)” rating in a research report on Tuesday, October 20th. Jefferies Financial Group initiated coverage on shares of StoneCo in a research note on Thursday, July 23rd. They set a “hold” rating and a $12.60 price target on the stock. UBS Group reissued a “buy” rating on shares of StoneCo in a report on Thursday, October 15th. Finally, Bank of America cut shares of StoneCo from a “buy” rating to a “neutral” rating and set a $13.00 price objective for the company. in a research report on Wednesday, July 15th. Four equities research analysts have rated the stock with a Buy rating and six have assigned a Hold rating to the company. According to data from MarketBeat.com, the company has a consensus rating of “Hold” and an average price target of $14.30.

StoneCo Price Performance

Shares of STNE stock opened at $8.00 on Friday. The stock has a 50-day moving average price of $10.15 and a 200 day moving average price of $12.23. The company has a quick ratio of 1.26, a current ratio of 1.26 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.84. The firm has a market cap of $1.99 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 3.23, a PEG ratio of 0.22 and a beta of 1.68. StoneCo has a 12 month low of $7.06 and a 12 month high of $19.45.

StoneCo (NASDAQ:STNE) last released its earnings results on Thursday, August 13th. The company reported $0.47 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $0.46 by $0.01. The company had revenue of $129.73 million for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $708.24 million. StoneCo had a net margin of 22.92% and a return on equity of 22.19%. Research analysts expect that StoneCo will post 2.21 EPS for the current year.

About StoneCo

StoneCo Ltd. is a financial technology company that provides payment processing and business-management solutions primarily to small and medium-sized businesses in Brazil. Through its Stone brand, the company enables merchants to accept payments in physical stores and online, including card, digital-wallet and other electronic transactions.

Its products and services include point-of-sale terminals, payment gateways, transaction processing, digital banking and financial-account services, as well as working-capital and other credit solutions for eligible merchants.