Media coverage about Darden Restaurants (NYSE:DRI) has trended somewhat positive on Tuesday, according to Accern Sentiment. Accern scores the sentiment of news coverage by monitoring more than twenty million blog and news sources in real-time. Accern ranks coverage of companies on a scale of negative one to positive one, with scores nearest to one being the most favorable. Darden Restaurants earned a media sentiment score of 0.23 on Accern’s scale. Accern also assigned news coverage about the restaurant operator an impact score of 46.0139340068313 out of 100, indicating that recent news coverage is somewhat unlikely to have an impact on the stock’s share price in the next few days.
These are some of the media stories that may have impacted Accern’s scoring:
- J.C. Penney names former Darden CFO as finance chief (JCP, DRI) (markets.businessinsider.com)
- J.C. Penney Picks Former Darden, Wal-Mart Executive for CFO Role (finance.yahoo.com)
- Shares Seesawing on Volume: Darden Restaurants Inc (DRI) - Evergreen Caller (evergreencaller.com)
- J.C. Penney appoints restaurant executive to chief financial officer (finance.yahoo.com)
Shares of Darden Restaurants (DRI) traded up 0.14% during trading on Tuesday, reaching $86.75. 1,242,048 shares of the company’s stock were exchanged. Darden Restaurants has a 12-month low of $59.50 and a 12-month high of $95.22. The stock has a market cap of $10.88 billion, a P/E ratio of 22.81 and a beta of 0.28. The company has a 50 day moving average of $90.28 and a 200 day moving average of $81.99.
Darden Restaurants (NYSE:DRI) last released its quarterly earnings results on Tuesday, June 27th. The restaurant operator reported $1.18 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $1.15 by $0.03. The business had revenue of $1.94 billion for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $1.86 billion. Darden Restaurants had a net margin of 6.68% and a return on equity of 26.18%. The business’s revenue was up 8.1% on a year-over-year basis. During the same period in the previous year, the firm earned $1.10 EPS. Equities research analysts anticipate that Darden Restaurants will post $4.47 EPS for the current year.
The business also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Tuesday, August 1st. Stockholders of record on Monday, July 10th will be paid a $0.63 dividend. This represents a $2.52 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 2.91%. This is an increase from Darden Restaurants’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.56. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Thursday, July 6th. Darden Restaurants’s payout ratio is 66.14%.
Several brokerages have recently issued reports on DRI. Raymond James Financial, Inc. restated a “market perform” rating on shares of Darden Restaurants in a research report on Monday. BidaskClub cut shares of Darden Restaurants from a “strong-buy” rating to a “buy” rating in a research report on Sunday, July 16th. Zacks Investment Research cut shares of Darden Restaurants from a “buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a research report on Wednesday, July 12th. Bank of America Corporation upped their target price on shares of Darden Restaurants from $80.00 to $85.00 and gave the company an “underperform” rating in a research report on Friday, June 30th. Finally, BMO Capital Markets upped their target price on shares of Darden Restaurants from $85.00 to $87.00 and gave the company a “market perform” rating in a research report on Friday, June 30th. Two research analysts have rated the stock with a sell rating, eighteen have issued a hold rating and seven have issued a buy rating to the company. Darden Restaurants currently has an average rating of “Hold” and a consensus price target of $84.78.
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In other news, insider Eugene I. Lee, Jr. sold 93,125 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Thursday, June 29th. The shares were sold at an average price of $91.58, for a total value of $8,528,387.50. Following the sale, the insider now directly owns 165,062 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $15,116,377.96. The transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available through this hyperlink. 0.69% of the stock is currently owned by insiders.
Darden Restaurants Company Profile
Darden Restaurants, Inc is a full-service restaurant company. The Company owned and operated 1,536 restaurants through its subsidiaries in the United States and Canada, as of May 29, 2016. The Company’s segments include Olive Garden, LongHorn Steakhouse, Fine Dining (which includes The Capital Grille, and Eddie V’s Prime Seafood and Wildfish Seafood Grille (Eddie V’s)) and Other Business (which includes Yard House, Seasons 52, Bahama Breeze, consumer-packaged goods and franchise revenues).
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