TD Cowen Reaffirms Hold Rating for Yum! Brands (NYSE:YUM)

TD Cowen restated their hold rating on shares of Yum! Brands (NYSE:YUM) in a research report released on Thursday,Benzinga reports. TD Cowen currently has a $140.00 price objective on the restaurant operator’s stock.

Other analysts also recently issued reports about the stock. Argus upgraded shares of Yum! Brands from a “hold” rating to a “buy” rating and set a $155.00 target price on the stock in a report on Tuesday, December 31st. Bank of America cut their price target on Yum! Brands from $147.00 to $145.00 and set a “neutral” rating on the stock in a report on Tuesday, October 22nd. Deutsche Bank Aktiengesellschaft decreased their price objective on Yum! Brands from $147.00 to $145.00 and set a “hold” rating for the company in a report on Wednesday, November 6th. Redburn Atlantic cut Yum! Brands from a “strong-buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a research note on Monday, November 11th. Finally, Sanford C. Bernstein cut shares of Yum! Brands from an “outperform” rating to a “market perform” rating and decreased their price target for the stock from $140.00 to $135.00 in a research note on Wednesday, January 22nd. Thirteen equities research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and five have assigned a buy rating to the stock. Based on data from MarketBeat, the company currently has an average rating of “Hold” and an average target price of $144.61.

Yum! Brands Stock Performance

YUM opened at $143.93 on Thursday. Yum! Brands has a twelve month low of $122.13 and a twelve month high of $144.43. The firm has a market cap of $40.17 billion, a PE ratio of 26.90, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 2.14 and a beta of 1.11. The firm’s fifty day moving average is $132.19 and its two-hundred day moving average is $133.65.

Yum! Brands (NYSE:YUM) last issued its quarterly earnings data on Tuesday, November 5th. The restaurant operator reported $1.37 EPS for the quarter, missing the consensus estimate of $1.41 by ($0.04). Yum! Brands had a negative return on equity of 18.93% and a net margin of 21.13%. The business had revenue of $1.83 billion for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $1.90 billion. During the same period in the previous year, the business posted $1.44 EPS. The business’s quarterly revenue was up 6.9% compared to the same quarter last year. Equities analysts forecast that Yum! Brands will post 5.46 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Yum! Brands Increases Dividend

The business also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Friday, March 7th. Stockholders of record on Friday, February 21st will be given a $0.71 dividend. This is a positive change from Yum! Brands’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.67. This represents a $2.84 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 1.97%. Yum! Brands’s dividend payout ratio is presently 50.09%.

Insider Buying and Selling

In other Yum! Brands news, CEO David W. Gibbs sold 7,059 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction on Friday, November 15th. The stock was sold at an average price of $135.94, for a total value of $959,600.46. Following the transaction, the chief executive officer now directly owns 149,385 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $20,307,396.90. This represents a 4.51 % decrease in their position. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which is available through this hyperlink. 0.31% of the stock is currently owned by insiders.

Institutional Investors Weigh In On Yum! Brands

A number of institutional investors have recently modified their holdings of YUM. Kohmann Bosshard Financial Services LLC acquired a new stake in Yum! Brands in the 4th quarter worth about $25,000. Safe Harbor Fiduciary LLC bought a new position in shares of Yum! Brands during the third quarter worth approximately $29,000. DiNuzzo Private Wealth Inc. raised its position in shares of Yum! Brands by 957.1% in the third quarter. DiNuzzo Private Wealth Inc. now owns 222 shares of the restaurant operator’s stock valued at $31,000 after buying an additional 201 shares in the last quarter. Halbert Hargrove Global Advisors LLC bought a new stake in shares of Yum! Brands in the fourth quarter valued at approximately $33,000. Finally, Jackson Grant Investment Advisers Inc. grew its position in Yum! Brands by 52.1% during the fourth quarter. Jackson Grant Investment Advisers Inc. now owns 295 shares of the restaurant operator’s stock worth $40,000 after buying an additional 101 shares in the last quarter. Institutional investors own 82.37% of the company’s stock.

Yum! Brands Company Profile

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.