Traders Buy Large Volume of iQIYI Call Options (NASDAQ:IQ)

iQIYI, Inc. (NASDAQ:IQ) saw some unusual options trading on Friday. Stock traders purchased 19,088 call options on the stock. This is an increase of 175% compared to the typical volume of 6,935 call options.

Hedge Funds Weigh In On iQIYI

Institutional investors and hedge funds have recently bought and sold shares of the company. SG Americas Securities LLC grew its holdings in iQIYI by 80.6% during the fourth quarter. SG Americas Securities LLC now owns 587,980 shares of the company’s stock valued at $2,869,000 after purchasing an additional 262,461 shares during the period. Vanguard Group Inc. lifted its position in shares of iQIYI by 1.6% during the third quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 17,586,474 shares of the company’s stock worth $83,360,000 after acquiring an additional 269,491 shares in the last quarter. Harvest Fund Management Co. Ltd lifted its position in shares of iQIYI by 43.2% during the fourth quarter. Harvest Fund Management Co. Ltd now owns 2,291,428 shares of the company’s stock worth $11,205,000 after acquiring an additional 691,364 shares in the last quarter. Federated Hermes Inc. lifted its position in shares of iQIYI by 147.8% during the third quarter. Federated Hermes Inc. now owns 10,603,420 shares of the company’s stock worth $50,260,000 after acquiring an additional 6,324,876 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Nordea Investment Management AB lifted its position in shares of iQIYI by 62.7% during the third quarter. Nordea Investment Management AB now owns 388,266 shares of the company’s stock worth $1,831,000 after acquiring an additional 149,557 shares in the last quarter. 52.69% of the stock is owned by institutional investors.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

Separately, OTR Global reaffirmed a “mixed” rating on shares of iQIYI in a report on Thursday, April 4th. Three equities research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and two have assigned a buy rating to the company. According to MarketBeat.com, the stock has a consensus rating of “Hold” and an average price target of $6.54.

iQIYI Stock Performance

IQ stock opened at $4.99 on Friday. The firm has a market cap of $4.79 billion, a PE ratio of 22.68 and a beta of 0.27. The company has a quick ratio of 0.57, a current ratio of 0.57 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.68. The business has a 50 day moving average of $4.08 and a 200-day moving average of $4.30. iQIYI has a 12-month low of $3.06 and a 12-month high of $6.47.

iQIYI (NASDAQ:IQ) last released its earnings results on Wednesday, February 28th. The company reported $0.08 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, meeting the consensus estimate of $0.08. iQIYI had a return on equity of 13.56% and a net margin of 4.76%. The company had revenue of $1.07 billion during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $1.08 billion. As a group, sell-side analysts expect that iQIYI will post 0.38 earnings per share for the current year.

iQIYI Company Profile

iQIYI, Inc, together with its subsidiaries, provides online entertainment video services in the People's Republic of China. It offers various products and services, including online video, online games, online literature, animations, and other products. The company operates a platform that provides a collection of internet video content, such as professionally produced content licensed from professional content providers and self-produced content.