Panera surges to record after upgraded stores boost sales

The company has a market cap of $4,639 million and there are 25,320,000 shares in outstanding. The company’s strengths can be seen in multiple areas, such as its revenue growth, reasonable valuation levels, good cash flow from operations, solid stock price performance and largely solid financial position with reasonable debt levels by most measures.

Other equities research analysts have also recently issued reports about the company.

Same-store sales systemwide were up 1.8 percent in the quarter compared to the same period previous year. Piper Jaffray raised Panera Bread from an “underweight” rating to an “overweight” rating and raised their price target for the stock from $140.00 to $200.00 in a research note on Wednesday, July 15th. The 52-week high of Panera Bread Company (NASDAQ:PNRA) is $188.24 and the 52-week low is $142.41.

“n”>Panera Bread Co (PNRA.O) said on Tuesday that restaurant sales accelerated in the current quarter, suggesting it is beginning to tackle a service slowdown that dented its results, sending shares in the popular bakery-cafe chain soaring 8 percent in after hours trading.

Another research firm was Deutsche Bank who initiated their coverage on the stock with Hold rating on May 29. Finally, Goldman Sachs raised Panera Bread from a “sell” rating to a “neutral” rating and lifted their price target for the stock from $158.00 to $172.00 in a research report on Thursday, July 9th. The consensus target price stands at $192.17. As of the end of last quarter, 183 of Panera’s restaurants had switched to the new format. The total inflow of $7.2 million in upticks was completely overshadowed by an outflow of $10.38 million in downticks, giving the up/down ratio a value of 0.69. That fell short of market forecasts; analysts surveyed by Zacks Investment Research, on average, were anticipating earnings of $1.63 per share. Panera Bread Company has dropped 0.62% during the last 3-month period.

Panera Bread Company (NASDAQ:PNRA) is a food service provider.

There are now twenty-eight analysts that cover Panera Bread Co stock. Panera is a national bakery-cafe concept with 1,880 Company-owned and franchise-operated bakery-cafe locations in 45 states, the District of Columbia, and Ontario, Canada. The Company offers breakfast, lunch, gathering place, dinner and take home through both on premise sales and off-premise Panera Catering. As of December 30, 2014, its Company bakery-cafe operations segment consisted of 925 Company-owned bakery-cafes and its franchise operations segment consisted of 955 franchise-operated bakery-cafes, located throughout the United States and in Ontario, Canada.