Yum! Brands (NYSE:YUM) Earns “Buy” Rating from TD Cowen

by · The Markets Daily

TD Cowen reaffirmed their buy rating on shares of Yum! Brands (NYSE:YUM – Free Report) in a research note issued to investors on Wednesday, Benzinga reports. TD Cowen currently has a $160.00 target price on the restaurant operator’s stock.

Several other equities analysts have also recently weighed in on YUM. Guggenheim raised their price target on Yum! Brands from $145.00 to $155.00 and gave the company a buy rating in a report on Thursday, March 7th. JPMorgan Chase & Co. lifted their target price on Yum! Brands from $133.00 to $134.00 and gave the stock a neutral rating in a report on Tuesday, March 19th. Citigroup lifted their target price on Yum! Brands from $164.00 to $166.00 and gave the stock a buy rating in a report on Thursday, February 8th. Stifel Nicolaus reiterated a hold rating and issued a $135.00 target price on shares of Yum! Brands in a report on Thursday, January 4th. Finally, Oppenheimer raised Yum! Brands from a market perform rating to an outperform rating and set a $154.00 price target for the company in a research note on Friday, January 5th. Ten investment analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and six have given a buy rating to the company. According to MarketBeat, the company has an average rating of Hold and a consensus target price of $145.00.

View Our Latest Report on Yum! Brands

Yum! Brands Trading Down 0.4 %

NYSE:YUM opened at $137.80 on Wednesday. Yum! Brands has a 12-month low of $115.53 and a 12-month high of $143.24. The stock has a 50-day moving average price of $136.30 and a 200 day moving average price of $129.69. The stock has a market capitalization of $38.79 billion, a P/E ratio of 24.65, a P/E/G ratio of 2.18 and a beta of 1.10.

Yum! Brands (NYSE:YUM – Get Free Report) last released its earnings results on Wednesday, February 7th. The restaurant operator reported $1.26 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, missing the consensus estimate of $1.39 by ($0.13). Yum! Brands had a negative return on equity of 17.76% and a net margin of 22.57%. The business had revenue of $2.04 billion for the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $2.11 billion. During the same quarter in the prior year, the business posted $1.31 EPS. The business’s revenue for the quarter was up .8% compared to the same quarter last year. On average, research analysts predict that Yum! Brands will post 5.72 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Yum! Brands Increases Dividend

The company also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Friday, March 8th. Shareholders of record on Wednesday, February 21st were given a dividend of $0.67 per share. The ex-dividend date was Tuesday, February 20th. This is a positive change from Yum! Brands’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.61. This represents a $2.68 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 1.94%. Yum! Brands’s payout ratio is 47.94%.

Insider Buying and Selling at Yum! Brands

In other Yum! Brands news, CEO David W. Gibbs sold 3,756 shares of Yum! Brands stock in a transaction on Tuesday, January 16th. The stock was sold at an average price of $129.21, for a total transaction of $485,312.76. Following the completion of the sale, the chief executive officer now directly owns 57,325 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $7,406,963.25. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which is available at the SEC website. In other news, CEO David W. Gibbs sold 3,756 shares of Yum! Brands stock in a transaction on Tuesday, January 16th. The stock was sold at an average price of $129.21, for a total value of $485,312.76. Following the transaction, the chief executive officer now directly owns 57,325 shares in the company, valued at approximately $7,406,963.25. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available at this hyperlink. Also, VP David Eric Russell sold 9,919 shares of Yum! Brands stock in a transaction on Friday, February 9th. The shares were sold at an average price of $129.63, for a total value of $1,285,799.97. Following the completion of the transaction, the vice president now owns 18,661 shares in the company, valued at $2,419,025.43. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders sold a total of 20,742 shares of company stock valued at $2,734,628 in the last ninety days. Corporate insiders own 0.31% of the company’s stock.

Institutional Inflows and Outflows

Several institutional investors and hedge funds have recently added to or reduced their stakes in the business. Vanguard Group Inc. grew its stake in Yum! Brands by 1.6% during the 4th quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 23,405,452 shares of the restaurant operator’s stock worth $3,058,156,000 after buying an additional 373,232 shares during the last quarter. Capital World Investors grew its stake in Yum! Brands by 4.9% during the 4th quarter. Capital World Investors now owns 14,650,728 shares of the restaurant operator’s stock valued at $1,914,257,000 after purchasing an additional 678,659 shares during the last quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC grew its stake in Yum! Brands by 1.5% during the 1st quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC now owns 5,947,399 shares of the restaurant operator’s stock valued at $784,673,000 after purchasing an additional 90,152 shares during the last quarter. Sustainable Growth Advisers LP grew its stake in Yum! Brands by 3.8% during the 3rd quarter. Sustainable Growth Advisers LP now owns 5,766,650 shares of the restaurant operator’s stock valued at $720,485,000 after purchasing an additional 210,238 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Capital International Investors grew its stake in Yum! Brands by 1.6% during the 1st quarter. Capital International Investors now owns 4,365,517 shares of the restaurant operator’s stock valued at $517,792,000 after purchasing an additional 67,468 shares during the last quarter. 82.37% of the stock is currently owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

Yum! Brands Company Profile

(Get Free Report)

Yum! Brands, Inc, together with its subsidiaries, develops, operates, and franchises quick service restaurants worldwide. The company operates through the KFC Division, the Taco Bell Division, the Pizza Hut Division, and the Habit Burger Grill Division segments. It also operates restaurants under the KFC, Pizza Hut, Taco Bell, and The Habit Burger Grill brands, which specialize in chicken, pizza, made-to-order chargrilled burgers, sandwiches, Mexican-style food categories, and other food products.

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