Yum! Brands (NYSE:YUM) was upgraded by Bank of America Corp. from an “underperform” rating to a “neutral” rating in a research note issued on Wednesday, AnalystRatings.Net reports.
The analysts wrote, “We are raising our rating on YUM shares from Underperform to Neutral and are raising our price objective from $60 to $79. There is no change in our below consensus estimates. We continue to expect KFC China’s recovery to be challenging. But the market appears more willing than we expected to look through the China challenges, suggesting the issues are likely reflected in the stock. We expect YUM’s China business to improve sequentially. The direction of the business may prove more important than the specific rate of recovery. Our revised price objective reflects a shift to our 2014 estimates rather than a hybrid 2013-14 approach and raising valuation parameters on Yum’s franchised U.S. business from 12x to 15x and moving to the mid-point rather than the low end of the 25x-30x P/E range that we have historically applied to Yum’s China earnings.”
A number of other firms have also recently commented on YUM. Analysts at Zacks reiterated a “neutral” rating on shares of Yum! Brands in a research note to investors on Friday, July 19th. They now have a $76.00 price target on the stock. Separately, analysts at Stifel Nicolaus initiated coverage on shares of Yum! Brands in a research note to investors on Tuesday, July 16th. They set a “buy” rating and a $105.00 price target on the stock. Finally, analysts at Barclays Capital raised their price target on shares of Yum! Brands from $69.00 to $72.00 in a research note to investors on Monday, July 15th.
Shares of Yum! Brands (NYSE:YUM) traded up 0.65% during mid-day trading on Wednesday, hitting $74.48. Yum! Brands has a one year low of $59.68 and a one year high of $74.84. The stock’s 50-day moving average is currently $71.5. The company has a market cap of $33.235 billion and a P/E ratio of 24.16.
Yum! Brands (NYSE:YUM) last posted its quarterly earnings results on Wednesday, July 10th. The company reported $0.56 earnings per share for the quarter, beating the analysts’ consensus estimate of $0.54 by $0.02. The company had revenue of $2.90 billion for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $2.93 billion. During the same quarter last year, the company posted $0.67 earnings per share. Yum! Brands’s revenue was down 8.3% compared to the same quarter last year. Analysts expect that Yum! Brands will post $3.08 EPS for the current fiscal year.
In other Yum! Brands news, SVP Jonathan David Blum dumped 2,914 shares of Yum! Brands stock in a transaction that occured on Thursday, August 1st. The stock was sold at an average price of $73.55, for a total transaction of $214,324.70. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which can be accessed through this link.
Yum! Brands, Inc (NYSE:YUM) is a quick service restaurant company based on number of system units, with approximately 37,000 units in more than 120 countries and territories.
