Yum! Brands (NYSE:YUM) Posts Earnings Results, Misses Estimates By $0.05 EPS

Yum! Brands (NYSE:YUM) issued its quarterly earnings results on Wednesday. The restaurant operator reported $1.15 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, missing analysts’ consensus estimates of $1.20 by ($0.05), Briefing.com reports. The business had revenue of $1.60 billion for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $1.71 billion. Yum! Brands had a negative return on equity of 17.76% and a net margin of 22.57%. The business’s revenue for the quarter was down 2.9% on a year-over-year basis. During the same period in the previous year, the company posted $1.06 earnings per share.

Yum! Brands Stock Down 0.2 %

Shares of YUM stock traded down $0.28 during mid-day trading on Thursday, hitting $135.05. 1,661,824 shares of the stock were exchanged, compared to its average volume of 1,991,575. The firm has a fifty day moving average of $138.30 and a 200 day moving average of $131.40. Yum! Brands has a 52-week low of $115.53 and a 52-week high of $143.20. The company has a market cap of $38.02 billion, a PE ratio of 24.33, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 2.22 and a beta of 1.07.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

YUM has been the topic of a number of recent analyst reports. Wells Fargo & Company downgraded Yum! Brands from an “overweight” rating to an “equal weight” rating and reduced their price target for the stock from $150.00 to $135.00 in a research report on Thursday, January 11th. Guggenheim upped their price target on Yum! Brands from $145.00 to $155.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a research report on Thursday, March 7th. Stifel Nicolaus reaffirmed a “hold” rating and set a $135.00 price target on shares of Yum! Brands in a research report on Thursday, January 4th. Oppenheimer raised Yum! Brands from a “market perform” rating to an “outperform” rating and set a $154.00 target price on the stock in a research report on Friday, January 5th. Finally, BMO Capital Markets upped their target price on Yum! Brands from $133.00 to $135.00 and gave the company a “market perform” rating in a research report on Thursday. Eleven investment analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and six have issued a buy rating to the company. According to MarketBeat, Yum! Brands currently has a consensus rating of “Hold” and a consensus target price of $144.44.

Insider Transactions at Yum! Brands

In other news, CEO David W. Gibbs sold 7,078 shares of the stock in a transaction dated Monday, April 15th. The shares were sold at an average price of $138.37, for a total transaction of $979,382.86. Following the sale, the chief executive officer now directly owns 172,128 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $23,817,351.36. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which is available at this hyperlink. In related news, CEO David W. Gibbs sold 7,078 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction dated Monday, April 15th. The shares were sold at an average price of $138.37, for a total transaction of $979,382.86. Following the completion of the transaction, the chief executive officer now owns 172,128 shares in the company, valued at approximately $23,817,351.36. The transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which can be accessed through the SEC website. Also, VP David Eric Russell sold 9,919 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction dated Friday, February 9th. The stock was sold at an average price of $129.63, for a total transaction of $1,285,799.97. Following the transaction, the vice president now owns 18,661 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $2,419,025.43. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders have sold a total of 24,064 shares of company stock valued at $3,228,698 in the last ninety days. 0.31% of the stock is currently owned by corporate insiders.

About Yum! Brands

Yum! Brands, Inc, together with its subsidiaries, develops, operates, and franchises quick service restaurants worldwide. The company operates through the KFC Division, the Taco Bell Division, the Pizza Hut Division, and the Habit Burger Grill Division segments. It also operates restaurants under the KFC, Pizza Hut, Taco Bell, and The Habit Burger Grill brands, which specialize in chicken, pizza, made-to-order chargrilled burgers, sandwiches, Mexican-style food categories, and other food products.