International Flavors & Fragrances (NYSE:IFF) Stock Rating Lowered by Cfra

International Flavors & Fragrances (NYSE:IFF) was downgraded by stock analysts at Cfra from a “buy” rating to a “sell” rating in a report issued on Thursday, Marketbeat.com reports. They currently have a $77.00 price target on the specialty chemicals company’s stock. Cfra’s price objective suggests a potential downside of 3.65% from the stock’s current price.

IFF has been the topic of several other reports. Bank of America raised International Flavors & Fragrances from a “neutral” rating to a “buy” rating and set a $107.00 target price on the stock in a research report on Friday, November 8th. Morgan Stanley raised shares of International Flavors & Fragrances from an “equal weight” rating to an “overweight” rating and dropped their price objective for the stock from $111.00 to $110.00 in a report on Tuesday, November 12th. Vertical Research raised shares of International Flavors & Fragrances from a “hold” rating to a “buy” rating and set a $109.00 target price for the company in a report on Thursday, November 7th. Citigroup dropped their price target on shares of International Flavors & Fragrances from $110.00 to $105.00 and set a “buy” rating on the stock in a research note on Wednesday, December 18th. Finally, Barclays cut their price objective on shares of International Flavors & Fragrances from $90.00 to $88.00 and set an “equal weight” rating for the company in a research report on Friday, January 17th. Two equities research analysts have rated the stock with a sell rating, three have issued a hold rating and twelve have assigned a buy rating to the company. Based on data from MarketBeat, the company presently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $103.50.

International Flavors & Fragrances Stock Performance

Shares of IFF stock opened at $79.92 on Thursday. The company has a quick ratio of 1.93, a current ratio of 1.84 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.54. The company has a 50 day moving average price of $84.71 and a 200-day moving average price of $93.45. International Flavors & Fragrances has a 52 week low of $72.94 and a 52 week high of $106.77. The firm has a market capitalization of $20.43 billion, a PE ratio of 85.02, a P/E/G ratio of 1.48 and a beta of 1.19.

International Flavors & Fragrances (NYSE:IFF) last posted its earnings results on Tuesday, February 18th. The specialty chemicals company reported $0.97 EPS for the quarter, topping analysts’ consensus estimates of $0.83 by $0.14. The business had revenue of $2.77 billion during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $2.67 billion. International Flavors & Fragrances had a net margin of 2.12% and a return on equity of 7.72%. As a group, equities research analysts expect that International Flavors & Fragrances will post 4.35 earnings per share for the current year.

Institutional Investors Weigh In On International Flavors & Fragrances

A number of institutional investors have recently added to or reduced their stakes in IFF. Dodge & Cox grew its stake in International Flavors & Fragrances by 11.9% during the fourth quarter. Dodge & Cox now owns 31,437,763 shares of the specialty chemicals company’s stock valued at $2,658,063,000 after acquiring an additional 3,355,381 shares in the last quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. grew its position in shares of International Flavors & Fragrances by 0.5% during the fourth quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 30,218,759 shares of the specialty chemicals company’s stock valued at $2,554,996,000 after purchasing an additional 164,945 shares in the last quarter. Freemont Capital Pte Ltd bought a new stake in shares of International Flavors & Fragrances in the fourth quarter worth about $2,143,882,000. State Street Corp lifted its position in shares of International Flavors & Fragrances by 1.9% in the third quarter. State Street Corp now owns 10,467,517 shares of the specialty chemicals company’s stock worth $1,102,363,000 after buying an additional 196,696 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Geode Capital Management LLC boosted its stake in International Flavors & Fragrances by 2.6% during the fourth quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC now owns 6,166,778 shares of the specialty chemicals company’s stock valued at $520,032,000 after buying an additional 157,948 shares during the last quarter. 96.02% of the stock is owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

International Flavors & Fragrances Company Profile

International Flavors & Fragrances, Inc engages in the manufacture and supply of flavors and fragrances used in the food, beverage, personal care, and household products industries. It operates through the following segments: Nourish, Health & Biosciences, Scent and Pharma Solutions. The Nourish segment consists of legacy Taste segment combined with N&B’s Food & Beverage division and the food protection business of N&B’s Health & Biosciences division.