We recently published a list of 10 Stocks Defy Monday’s Market Optimism. In this article, we are going to take a look at where VNET Group Inc. (NASDAQ:VNET) stands against other stocks that defy Monday’s market optimism.

US shares kicked off Monday’s trading with a bounceback from last week’s pessimistic sentiment, as economies took a pause from their tariff war.

Additionally, investors breathed a sigh of relief on the February retail sales report which came in not as bad as feared.

According to the latest figures, retail sales rose 0.2 percent, albeit below the 0.6 percent as expected by analysts. Excluding autos, sales are up by 0.3 percent, in line with economists’ expectations.

Following the news, the Dow Jones clocked in a 0.85-percent gain, followed by the S&P 500 with 0.64 percent, and the tech-heavy Nasdaq with 0.31 percent.

Meanwhile, 10 companies bucked a wider optimistic sentiment over a flurry of negative corporate news that weighed down on their shares. In this article, we have listed Monday’s 10 worst performers and detailed the reasons behind their drop.

To come up with the list, we considered only the stocks with $2 billion market capitalization and $5 million in trading volume.Why VNET Group Inc. (VNET) Went Down On Monday?

A close up image of a application hosting server with the company's branding on it.

VNET Group Inc. (NASDAQ:VNET)

VNET Group declined by 2.32 percent on Monday to finish at $11.38 apiece as investors sold off positions despite an upgrade in its stock rating and price target and impressive earnings performance last year.

On Monday, Bank of America raised its price target for VNET to $17.30 from $14.50 previously, representing a 52-percent upside from its closing price on Monday, while maintaining its “buy” rating on the company.

The more optimistic outlook was based on the company’s much higher guidance on capacity delivery targets, now between 400 to 450 MW as compared with the 153MW actual delivery in 2024.

In its latest earnings release, VNET said it narrowed its fourth-quarter net loss attributable to the company by 99 percent to RMB11.1 million from RMB2.4 billion in the same period a year earlier, as net revenues increased by RMB2.246 billion from RMB1.898 billion.

Meanwhile, it swung to a net income of RMB183 million in full-year 2024 from a RMB2.6 billion net loss a year earlier, as revenues grew by 42 percent to RMB1.832 billion from RMB1.292 billion.

“Moving into 2025, we remain confident in the Chinese market’s growth potential. Recent AI breakthroughs are propelling AI development domestically, spurring inference demand, and reducing costs. This is boosting industry-wide enthusiasm for investing in AI, unlocking greater demand for high-performance data centers and reliable IDC services. As a leading player with a clear expansion path for such advanced capacity, we are well-positioned to capture rising market opportunities, driving our sustainable growth,” said VNET CEO Josh Sheng Chen.

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Overall, VNET ranks 9th on our list of stocks that defy Monday’s market optimism. While we acknowledge the potential of VNET as an investment, our conviction lies in the belief that some AI stocks hold greater promise for delivering higher returns and doing so within a shorter time frame. If you are looking for an AI stock that is as promising as VNET but trades at less than 5 times its earnings, check out our report about the cheapest AI stock.

READ NEXT: 20 Best AI Stocks To Buy Now and 30 Best Stocks to Buy Now According to Billionaires

Disclosure: None. This article is originally published at Insider Monkey.

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