Business First Bancshares (NASDAQ:BFST) Announces Earnings Results, Beats Expectations By $0.17 EPS

Business First Bancshares (NASDAQ:BFST) released its quarterly earnings data on Thursday. The company reported $0.66 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $0.49 by $0.17, Zacks reports. Business First Bancshares had a net margin of 14.92% and a return on equity of 11.57%.

Business First Bancshares Stock Performance

NASDAQ BFST opened at $25.44 on Friday. The firm has a market cap of $751.50 million, a P/E ratio of 10.97 and a beta of 1.00. Business First Bancshares has a 52-week low of $18.97 and a 52-week high of $30.30. The business’s 50-day moving average price is $26.71 and its 200 day moving average price is $25.40. The company has a quick ratio of 0.99, a current ratio of 0.99 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.75.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

A number of analysts recently issued reports on BFST shares. Hovde Group cut Business First Bancshares from an “outperform” rating to a “market perform” rating and upped their target price for the company from $30.00 to $31.50 in a research report on Wednesday, November 13th. Raymond James raised Business First Bancshares from a “market perform” rating to an “outperform” rating and set a $30.00 price objective for the company in a report on Thursday, December 19th.

Insider Buying and Selling at Business First Bancshares

In other Business First Bancshares news, Director Joseph Vernon Johnson sold 6,000 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction on Friday, November 1st. The shares were sold at an average price of $26.36, for a total transaction of $158,160.00. Following the completion of the transaction, the director now owns 185,557 shares in the company, valued at approximately $4,891,282.52. This represents a 3.13 % decrease in their position. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which can be accessed through the SEC website. Insiders sold a total of 12,480 shares of company stock valued at $329,972 in the last ninety days. Insiders own 6.45% of the company’s stock.

About Business First Bancshares

Business First Bancshares, Inc operates as the bank holding company for b1BANK that provides various banking products and services in Louisiana and Texas. It offers various deposit products and services, including checking, demand, money market, time, and savings accounts; and certificates of deposits, remote deposit capture, and direct deposit services.