Flowers Foods, Inc. (NYSE:FLO) Receives Average Recommendation of “Reduce” from Analysts

Flowers Foods, Inc. (NYSE:FLO) has been assigned an average rating of “Reduce” from the four research firms that are covering the firm, MarketBeat reports. One research analyst has rated the stock with a sell recommendation and three have given a hold recommendation to the company. The average 12-month target price among analysts that have issued ratings on the stock in the last year is $22.75.

FLO has been the topic of several recent analyst reports. StockNews.com lowered Flowers Foods from a “strong-buy” rating to a “buy” rating in a report on Wednesday, September 18th. BNP Paribas initiated coverage on Flowers Foods in a report on Wednesday, July 10th. They set an “underperform” rating and a $20.00 target price on the stock.

Flowers Foods Stock Up 1.4 %

NYSE:FLO opened at $22.40 on Friday. Flowers Foods has a 12-month low of $19.64 and a 12-month high of $26.12. The company has a quick ratio of 0.91, a current ratio of 1.19 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.77. The firm has a market capitalization of $4.73 billion, a P/E ratio of 37.97, a P/E/G ratio of 4.43 and a beta of 0.36. The stock’s fifty day simple moving average is $22.97 and its 200-day simple moving average is $23.16.

Flowers Foods (NYSE:FLO) last posted its quarterly earnings results on Friday, August 16th. The company reported $0.36 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $0.33 by $0.03. Flowers Foods had a return on equity of 18.97% and a net margin of 2.51%. The business had revenue of $1.23 billion for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $1.24 billion. During the same period last year, the company earned $0.33 EPS. The firm’s revenue was down .3% on a year-over-year basis. Equities research analysts expect that Flowers Foods will post 1.26 earnings per share for the current year.

Flowers Foods Announces Dividend

The company also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Friday, September 20th. Stockholders of record on Friday, September 6th were issued a $0.24 dividend. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Friday, September 6th. This represents a $0.96 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 4.29%. Flowers Foods’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is 162.71%.

Institutional Trading of Flowers Foods

A number of institutional investors have recently modified their holdings of FLO. Rise Advisors LLC bought a new stake in shares of Flowers Foods in the first quarter valued at about $26,000. GAMMA Investing LLC increased its position in shares of Flowers Foods by 56.6% in the first quarter. GAMMA Investing LLC now owns 2,325 shares of the company’s stock valued at $55,000 after acquiring an additional 840 shares during the last quarter. Headlands Technologies LLC acquired a new stake in shares of Flowers Foods in the second quarter valued at about $59,000. Versant Capital Management Inc increased its position in shares of Flowers Foods by 7,694.7% in the second quarter. Versant Capital Management Inc now owns 2,962 shares of the company’s stock valued at $66,000 after acquiring an additional 2,924 shares during the last quarter. Finally, HHM Wealth Advisors LLC increased its position in shares of Flowers Foods by 264.0% in the second quarter. HHM Wealth Advisors LLC now owns 3,494 shares of the company’s stock valued at $78,000 after acquiring an additional 2,534 shares during the last quarter. 75.45% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors.

About Flowers Foods

Flowers Foods, Inc produces and markets packaged bakery food products in the United States. Its principal products include fresh breads, buns, rolls, snack items, bagels, English muffins, and tortillas, as well as frozen breads and rolls under the Nature's Own, Dave's Killer Bread, Wonder, Canyon Bakehouse, Mrs.