Darden Beats on Q2 Earnings, Ups 2016 EPS amp; Comps View

Earnings, adjusted for one-time items, came to 54 cents per share, topping the 42 cents per share analysts expected. Darden Restaurants, Inc. has a one year low of $53.38 and a one year high of $75.60.

“We saw continued momentum this quarter, with all our brands once again posting positive same-restaurant sales growth and delivering meaningful margin improvement”, said CEO Gene Lee, who assumed the company’s top job permanently February after replacing his predecessor, Clarence Otis, on an interim basis. The stock has a 50 day moving average price of $57.78 and a 200 day moving average price of $66.47. The stock has a market cap of $7.52 billion and a price-to-earnings ratio of 25.93.

Total revenue of $1.609 billion lagged the Zacks Consensus Estimate of $1.626 billion by approximately 1%. This means that over the past quarter there has been an increase of insiders buying their shares of DRI in relation to earlier this year. The business’s revenue was up 5.7% compared to the same quarter a year ago. Darden Restaurants was the topic of 12 analyst reports since August 25, 2015 according to the firm StockzIntelligence Inc. Maxim Group maintained DRI stock in a recent report from November 11 with a “Buy” rating. Deutsche Bank restated a “buy” rating and set a $80.00 target price on shares of Darden Restaurants in a report on Thursday, October 15th. Finally, Citigroup Inc. dropped their target price on Darden Restaurants from $80.00 to $77.00 and set a buy rating on the stock in a research report on Friday, October 2nd. On average, analysts expect Darden Restaurants to post $3.19 EPS for the current fiscal year and $3.64 EPS for the next fiscal year. One investment analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, ten have given a hold rating and twelve have given a buy rating to the stock. 13D Management Llc owns 290,745 shares or 4.65% of their United States portfolio. Darden Restaurants now has an average rating of “Hold” and an average target price of $71.85.

Also, the company has raised its comps growth expectation in the range of 2.5% to 3.0% for fiscal 2016, compared with the previous range of 2% to 2.5%. The acquisition was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available through the SEC website.

When taking into account all of Darden’s other chains, including The Capital Grille and LongHorn Steakhouse, overall sales rose 1.6 percent at established locations for the latest period. Bittner covers the services sector, focusing on stocks such as Restaurant Brands International, Buffalo Wild Wings, and Cheesecake Factory.

The company reported 2QFY16 same-restaurant sales (SSS) growth at 1.6%.