Green Plains, Inc. (NASDAQ:GPRE) Stock Has Consensus Target Price of $17.00

Green Plains, Inc. (NASDAQ:GPRE) has been assigned an average recommendation of “Moderate Buy” from the seven ratings firms that are presently covering the company, MarketBeat Ratings reports. Four analysts have rated the stock with a hold recommendation, two have given a buy recommendation and one has issued a strong buy recommendation on the company. The average 1-year price target among brokerages that have covered the stock in the last year is $17.00.

A number of research firms have recently weighed in on GPRE. Wall Street Zen upgraded shares of Green Plains from a “buy” rating to a “strong-buy” rating in a report on Saturday, August 8th. Weiss Ratings upgraded shares of Green Plains from a “sell (d-)” rating to a “hold (c)” rating in a report on Tuesday, September 22nd. UBS Group reissued a “neutral” rating on shares of Green Plains in a research report on Tuesday, August 25th. BMO Capital Markets restated a “market perform” rating on shares of Green Plains in a report on Friday, August 7th. Finally, Zacks Research upgraded Green Plains from a “hold” rating to a “strong-buy” rating in a report on Friday, October 23rd.

Institutional Inflows and Outflows

A number of institutional investors have recently made changes to their positions in the stock. BlackRock Inc. bought a new stake in Green Plains during the second quarter worth approximately $156,703,000. Dimensional Fund Advisors LP lifted its stake in shares of Green Plains by 9.7% in the first quarter. Dimensional Fund Advisors LP now owns 1,643,651 shares of the specialty chemicals company’s stock worth $27,039,000 after buying an additional 145,741 shares during the last quarter. Thomist Capital Management LP acquired a new stake in shares of Green Plains in the second quarter worth $19,542,000. Bank of America Corp DE bought a new stake in shares of Green Plains during the 2nd quarter worth $14,546,000. Finally, Assenagon Asset Management S.A. boosted its holdings in shares of Green Plains by 94.3% during the 3rd quarter. Assenagon Asset Management S.A. now owns 483,502 shares of the specialty chemicals company’s stock worth $7,282,000 after buying an additional 234,689 shares during the period.

Green Plains Stock Performance

Shares of NASDAQ GPRE opened at $14.10 on Monday. The business has a 50 day simple moving average of $14.77 and a 200 day simple moving average of $15.19. Green Plains has a 52 week low of $9.29 and a 52 week high of $19.65. The stock has a market cap of $988.41 million, a price-to-earnings ratio of 8.87 and a beta of 1.11. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.45, a quick ratio of 1.58 and a current ratio of 1.99.

Green Plains (NASDAQ:GPRE) last issued its quarterly earnings data on Thursday, August 6th. The specialty chemicals company reported $0.83 earnings per share for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $0.54 by $0.29. The firm had revenue of $446.22 million for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $542.38 million. Green Plains had a net margin of 6.78% and a return on equity of 14.52%. During the same quarter last year, the firm earned ($1.09) earnings per share. On average, research analysts predict that Green Plains will post 2.31 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

About Green Plains

Green Plains Inc is a renewable fuels and agricultural technology company headquartered in Omaha, Nebraska. The company operates biorefineries in the central United States that convert corn into renewable, low-carbon products, including ethanol, animal feed ingredients and corn oil.

Its product portfolio includes fuel-grade ethanol for blending into gasoline, distillers grains and other feed products for livestock and aquaculture, and corn oil used in feed and renewable fuel applications.