Argos Wealth Advisors LLC Invests $587,000 in Yum! Brands, Inc. $YUM

Argos Wealth Advisors LLC bought a new position in Yum! Brands, Inc. (NYSE:YUM) during the 4th quarter, Holdings Channel.com reports. The firm bought 3,877 shares of the restaurant operator’s stock, valued at approximately $587,000.

Other hedge funds and other institutional investors also recently added to or reduced their stakes in the company. Money Concepts Capital Corp raised its holdings in Yum! Brands by 2.2% in the 4th quarter. Money Concepts Capital Corp now owns 3,647 shares of the restaurant operator’s stock worth $552,000 after purchasing an additional 78 shares in the last quarter. AG2R LA Mondiale Gestion D Actifs increased its stake in shares of Yum! Brands by 10.6% in the 4th quarter. AG2R LA Mondiale Gestion D Actifs now owns 11,649 shares of the restaurant operator’s stock worth $1,762,000 after acquiring an additional 1,119 shares in the last quarter. Swiss Life Asset Management Ltd increased its stake in shares of Yum! Brands by 8.0% in the 4th quarter. Swiss Life Asset Management Ltd now owns 57,885 shares of the restaurant operator’s stock worth $8,757,000 after acquiring an additional 4,290 shares in the last quarter. Midwest Trust Co increased its stake in shares of Yum! Brands by 8.0% in the 4th quarter. Midwest Trust Co now owns 8,376 shares of the restaurant operator’s stock worth $1,267,000 after acquiring an additional 619 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Oxbow Advisors LLC increased its stake in shares of Yum! Brands by 0.5% in the 4th quarter. Oxbow Advisors LLC now owns 22,998 shares of the restaurant operator’s stock worth $3,479,000 after acquiring an additional 113 shares in the last quarter. 82.37% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

Several analysts recently commented on the stock. Barclays set a $185.00 price objective on shares of Yum! Brands and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a research report on Thursday, February 5th. JPMorgan Chase & Co. increased their price objective on shares of Yum! Brands from $160.00 to $170.00 and gave the stock an “overweight” rating in a research note on Tuesday, February 24th. Evercore reiterated an “outperform” rating and issued a $190.00 price objective on shares of Yum! Brands in a research note on Friday, February 13th. Citigroup increased their price objective on shares of Yum! Brands from $174.00 to $175.00 and gave the stock a “neutral” rating in a research note on Thursday, April 30th. Finally, Wells Fargo & Company increased their price objective on shares of Yum! Brands from $160.00 to $165.00 and gave the stock an “equal weight” rating in a research note on Thursday, April 30th. Twelve research analysts have rated the stock with a Buy rating and eight have given a Hold rating to the company’s stock. According to data from MarketBeat.com, the company currently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus target price of $176.22.

Insiders Place Their Bets

In other Yum! Brands news, CEO Scott Mezvinsky sold 1,612 shares of Yum! Brands stock in a transaction on Friday, February 13th. The shares were sold at an average price of $164.63, for a total transaction of $265,383.56. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available through this hyperlink. Also, CEO Christopher Lee Turner sold 250 shares of Yum! Brands stock in a transaction on Friday, May 1st. The stock was sold at an average price of $160.48, for a total transaction of $40,120.00. Following the transaction, the chief executive officer directly owned 64,552 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $10,359,304.96. The trade was a 0.39% decrease in their ownership of the stock. Additional details regarding this sale are available in the official SEC disclosure. The transaction was executed under a pre-arranged Rule 10b5-1 trading plan. Over the last three months, insiders sold 2,665 shares of company stock valued at $437,283. 0.14% of the stock is currently owned by insiders.

Yum! Brands Stock Performance

YUM stock opened at $152.91 on Wednesday. The firm has a fifty day moving average price of $158.33 and a 200 day moving average price of $154.95. Yum! Brands, Inc. has a fifty-two week low of $137.33 and a fifty-two week high of $169.39. The firm has a market cap of $42.15 billion, a PE ratio of 24.66, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 1.92 and a beta of 0.61.

Yum! Brands (NYSE:YUM) last posted its earnings results on Wednesday, April 29th. The restaurant operator reported $1.50 earnings per share for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $1.39 by $0.11. Yum! Brands had a net margin of 20.48% and a negative return on equity of 23.51%. The firm had revenue of $2.06 billion during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $2.04 billion. During the same period last year, the firm posted $1.30 earnings per share. Yum! Brands’s revenue for the quarter was up 15.2% compared to the same quarter last year. On average, equities analysts predict that Yum! Brands, Inc. will post 6.76 EPS for the current year.

Yum! Brands Profile

Yum! Brands, Inc (NYSE: YUM) is a global quick-service restaurant company that develops, operates and franchises a portfolio of well-known restaurant brands. The company’s principal brands are KFC, Pizza Hut and Taco Bell, each focused on distinct product categories—KFC on fried chicken and related menu items, Pizza Hut on pizza and complementary offerings, and Taco Bell on Mexican-inspired quick-service food. Yum! is headquartered in Louisville, Kentucky and was formed as Tricon Global Restaurants in 1997 when PepsiCo spun off its restaurant businesses, later adopting the Yum! Brands name.

The company’s operating model centers on brand development, system growth and franchising; a large portion of its restaurants are operated by independent franchisees, and Yum! generates revenue through franchise royalties and fees in addition to sales from company-operated locations.