Zacks Research Downgrades Weibo (NASDAQ:WB) to Strong Sell

Weibo (NASDAQ:WB) was downgraded by investment analysts at Zacks Research from a “hold” rating to a “strong sell” rating in a research report issued on Tuesday,Zacks.com reports.

WB has been the topic of a number of other research reports. Jefferies Financial Group reaffirmed a “buy” rating and set a $9.80 price target on shares of Weibo in a report on Thursday, May 28th. Weiss Ratings lowered shares of Weibo from a “hold (c)” rating to a “sell (d+)” rating in a research report on Monday, April 27th. Two investment analysts have rated the stock with a Buy rating and two have issued a Sell rating to the company’s stock. Based on data from MarketBeat, the company has a consensus rating of “Hold” and an average target price of $11.90.

Weibo Stock Performance

Shares of NASDAQ WB opened at $7.66 on Tuesday. The company has a quick ratio of 3.02, a current ratio of 3.02 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.48. The firm’s 50-day moving average price is $8.38 and its two-hundred day moving average price is $9.48. Weibo has a 52-week low of $7.59 and a 52-week high of $12.96. The stock has a market capitalization 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 earnings results on Thursday, May 28th. The information services provider reported $0.34 earnings per share (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 business had revenue of $421.33 million during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $416.76 million. During the same period in the prior year, the business earned $0.45 EPS. The business’s revenue was up 6.1% on a year-over-year basis. As a group, sell-side analysts forecast that Weibo will post 1.26 earnings per share for the current year.

Institutional Inflows and Outflows

Large investors have recently made changes to their positions in the stock. EverSource Wealth Advisors LLC increased its stake in Weibo by 337.5% in the first quarter. EverSource Wealth Advisors LLC now owns 3,876 shares of the information services provider’s stock valued at $34,000 after acquiring an additional 2,990 shares during the period. WealthCollab LLC increased its stake in Weibo by 50.1% in the fourth quarter. WealthCollab LLC now owns 5,123 shares of the information services provider’s stock valued at $52,000 after acquiring an additional 1,709 shares during the period. Daiwa Securities Group Inc. bought a new stake in Weibo in the second quarter valued at about $61,000. FourThought Financial Partners LLC bought a new stake in Weibo in the fourth quarter valued at about $110,000. Finally, AQR Capital Management LLC bought a new stake in Weibo during the first quarter worth about $117,000. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 68.77% of the company’s stock.

Weibo Company Profile

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.