Weibo (NASDAQ:WB) Downgraded to “Strong Sell” Rating by Zacks Research

Zacks Research downgraded shares of Weibo (NASDAQ:WB) from a hold rating to a strong sell rating in a research note released on Tuesday,Zacks.com reports.

Several other equities analysts have also recently issued reports on the company. Jefferies Financial Group reissued a “buy” rating and issued a $9.80 price objective on shares of Weibo in a report on Thursday, May 28th. Weiss Ratings cut Weibo from a “hold (c)” rating to a “sell (d+)” rating in a report on Monday, April 27th. Two research analysts have rated the stock with a Buy rating and two have assigned a Sell rating to the company’s stock. According to data from MarketBeat.com, the company presently has a consensus rating of “Hold” and an average price target of $11.90.

Weibo Stock Performance

Shares of WB opened at $7.66 on Tuesday. The stock has a 50-day moving average of $8.38 and a two-hundred day moving average of $9.48. Weibo has a one year low of $7.59 and a one year high of $12.96. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.48, a quick ratio of 3.02 and a current ratio of 3.02. The stock has a market cap of $1.88 billion, a P/E ratio of 5.36, a P/E/G ratio of 4.60 and a beta of 0.20.

Weibo (NASDAQ:WB) last issued its quarterly earnings results on Thursday, May 28th. The information services provider reported $0.34 EPS for the quarter, missing analysts’ consensus estimates of $0.36 by ($0.02). Weibo had a return on equity of 9.90% and a net margin of 21.15%.The firm had revenue of $421.33 million for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $416.76 million. During the same period in the prior year, the firm posted $0.45 EPS. The business’s revenue was up 6.1% compared to the same quarter last year. As a group, research analysts predict that Weibo will post 1.26 EPS for the current year.

Weibo Cuts Dividend

The firm also recently declared an annual dividend, which was paid on Friday, May 22nd. Investors of record on Friday, April 17th were paid a $0.61 dividend. This represents a dividend yield of 690.0%. The ex-dividend date was Friday, April 17th. Weibo’s payout ratio is currently 41.26%.

Hedge Funds Weigh In On Weibo

Several institutional investors and hedge funds have recently modified their holdings of WB. FIL Ltd purchased a new position in shares of Weibo in the 4th quarter valued at about $16,693,000. Krane Funds Advisors LLC increased its stake in shares of Weibo by 25.0% in the 3rd quarter. Krane Funds Advisors LLC now owns 4,676,063 shares of the information services provider’s stock valued at $57,983,000 after purchasing an additional 934,898 shares in the last quarter. UBS Group AG increased its stake in shares of Weibo by 102.8% in the 3rd quarter. UBS Group AG now owns 1,377,705 shares of the information services provider’s stock valued at $17,084,000 after purchasing an additional 698,521 shares in the last quarter. JPMorgan Chase & Co. increased its stake in shares of Weibo by 497.1% in the 2nd quarter. JPMorgan Chase & Co. now owns 720,348 shares of the information services provider’s stock valued at $6,865,000 after purchasing an additional 599,700 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Grantham Mayo Van Otterloo & Co. LLC increased its stake in shares of Weibo by 99.8% in the 3rd quarter. Grantham Mayo Van Otterloo & Co. LLC now owns 1,045,801 shares of the information services provider’s stock valued at $12,968,000 after purchasing an additional 522,400 shares in the last quarter. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 68.77% of the company’s stock.

About Weibo

Weibo Corporation operates one of China’s leading social media and microblogging platforms under the brand name Weibo. Launched in August 2009 by Sina Corporation, Weibo enables users to create, share and engage with short-form posts in real time. The platform supports text, images, videos and live streams, and offers features such as trending topics, hashtag campaigns and public discussion forums to facilitate user interaction and content discovery.

Weibo’s product suite extends beyond basic social networking to include digital content services such as live streaming, online games, value-added messaging and e-commerce integrations.