BRF (NYSE:BRFS) Rating Lowered to “Buy” at StockNews.com

StockNews.com lowered shares of BRF (NYSE:BRFS) from a strong-buy rating to a buy rating in a research note released on Tuesday.

Other equities analysts also recently issued research reports about the stock. Bank of America upped their price objective on shares of BRF from $22.00 to $24.00 and gave the company a “neutral” rating in a research note on Thursday, August 15th. Barclays raised their price target on BRF from $4.50 to $5.00 and gave the stock an “overweight” rating in a research note on Friday, August 16th. Two research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and three have issued a buy rating to the stock. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, BRF has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $10.70.

BRF Price Performance

Shares of NYSE BRFS opened at $4.31 on Tuesday. The stock’s 50-day simple moving average is $4.37 and its 200-day simple moving average is $4.07. The firm has a market capitalization of $4.66 billion, a PE ratio of 15.95, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 0.25 and a beta of 1.93. BRF has a fifty-two week low of $2.45 and a fifty-two week high of $4.76. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.20, a quick ratio of 0.99 and a current ratio of 1.45.

BRF (NYSE:BRFS) last released its quarterly earnings data on Thursday, August 15th. The company reported $0.11 earnings per share for the quarter, topping analysts’ consensus estimates of $0.07 by $0.04. BRF had a net margin of 3.61% and a return on equity of 11.51%. The company had revenue of $2.86 billion for the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $2.55 billion. During the same quarter last year, the company earned ($0.10) earnings per share. As a group, equities research analysts forecast that BRF will post 0.46 EPS for the current fiscal year.

BRF Increases Dividend

The firm also recently disclosed a dividend, which will be paid on Monday, December 16th. Shareholders of record on Wednesday, November 27th will be paid a $0.1001 dividend. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Wednesday, November 27th. This is a positive change from BRF’s previous dividend of $0.03.

Institutional Investors Weigh In On BRF

Several hedge funds have recently made changes to their positions in BRFS. Dimensional Fund Advisors LP raised its stake in BRF by 12.2% during the 2nd quarter. Dimensional Fund Advisors LP now owns 23,448 shares of the company’s stock valued at $95,000 after acquiring an additional 2,555 shares during the last quarter. Signaturefd LLC lifted its holdings in shares of BRF by 13.0% during the third quarter. Signaturefd LLC now owns 31,495 shares of the company’s stock worth $138,000 after purchasing an additional 3,618 shares during the period. Cloverfields Capital Group LP lifted its holdings in shares of BRF by 0.8% during the first quarter. Cloverfields Capital Group LP now owns 564,642 shares of the company’s stock worth $1,841,000 after purchasing an additional 4,234 shares during the period. Blue Trust Inc. grew its position in BRF by 39.9% in the 3rd quarter. Blue Trust Inc. now owns 17,397 shares of the company’s stock valued at $71,000 after buying an additional 4,966 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Vanguard Personalized Indexing Management LLC increased its stake in BRF by 36.4% in the 2nd quarter. Vanguard Personalized Indexing Management LLC now owns 22,900 shares of the company’s stock valued at $92,000 after buying an additional 6,113 shares during the period. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 4.76% of the company’s stock.

About BRF

BRF SA raises, produces, and slaughters poultry and pork for processing, production, and sale of fresh meat, processed products, pasta, margarine, pet food, and other products. The company provides frozen whole and cut chicken, frozen pork, and turkey, and halal products for Islamic markets; processed foods, such as marinated, frozen, seasoned whole, and cut chicken, roosters, sausages, ham products, bologna, frankfurters, salamis, bacons, cold meats, and other smoked products; and hamburgers, steaks, breaded meat products, kibbeh, and meatballs, as well as chicken sausages, hot dogs, and chicken bologna.