Rent-A-Center (NASDAQ:RCII) Earns Buy Rating from Analysts at StockNews.com

Research analysts at StockNews.com assumed coverage on shares of Rent-A-Center (NASDAQ:RCII – Get Rating) in a research note issued to investors on Wednesday. The firm set a “buy” rating on the stock.

A number of other research firms have also weighed in on RCII. Craig Hallum started coverage on shares of Rent-A-Center in a research report on Monday, December 5th. They set a “buy” rating and a $40.00 target price for the company. Loop Capital downgraded shares of Rent-A-Center from a “buy” rating to a “hold” rating and set a $30.00 price objective on the stock. in a report on Monday, February 6th. Finally, Raymond James boosted their price objective on shares of Rent-A-Center from $28.00 to $31.00 and gave the stock an “outperform” rating in a report on Monday, February 27th. Two research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and five have given a buy rating to the company’s stock. According to MarketBeat.com, the company has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $34.50.

Rent-A-Center Price Performance

The firm has a market cap of $1.49 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 133.90 and a beta of 1.82. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 2.61, a quick ratio of 0.93 and a current ratio of 3.33. Rent-A-Center has a 52-week low of $16.82 and a 52-week high of $31.91. The stock’s fifty day moving average price is $25.81 and its two-hundred day moving average price is $24.01.

Rent-A-Center (NASDAQ:RCII – Get Rating) last released its earnings results on Thursday, February 23rd. The company reported $0.86 earnings per share for the quarter, topping analysts’ consensus estimates of $0.75 by $0.11. The firm had revenue of $990.50 million during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $990.45 million. Rent-A-Center had a net margin of 0.29% and a return on equity of 40.50%. The business’s revenue was down 15.4% on a year-over-year basis. During the same quarter in the previous year, the business earned $1.08 EPS. As a group, sell-side analysts expect that Rent-A-Center will post 2.8 earnings per share for the current year.

Insider Activity at Rent-A-Center

In other Rent-A-Center news, Director Jeffrey J. Brown bought 1,084 shares of the stock in a transaction that occurred on Tuesday, January 10th. The shares were acquired at an average price of $24.20 per share, with a total value of $26,232.80. Following the completion of the purchase, the director now directly owns 78,228 shares in the company, valued at approximately $1,893,117.60. The acquisition was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is accessible through this hyperlink. 11.00% of the stock is currently owned by insiders.

Institutional Trading of Rent-A-Center

Institutional investors and hedge funds have recently added to or reduced their stakes in the business. FMR LLC grew its stake in Rent-A-Center by 34.4% during the second quarter. FMR LLC now owns 7,855,208 shares of the company’s stock worth $152,784,000 after buying an additional 2,011,123 shares during the last quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. grew its stake in Rent-A-Center by 1.1% during the third quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 5,968,555 shares of the company’s stock worth $104,510,000 after buying an additional 66,728 shares during the last quarter. Engaged Capital LLC grew its stake in Rent-A-Center by 40.5% during the fourth quarter. Engaged Capital LLC now owns 3,604,216 shares of the company’s stock worth $81,275,000 after buying an additional 1,039,672 shares during the last quarter. State Street Corp grew its stake in Rent-A-Center by 8.8% during the first quarter. State Street Corp now owns 2,333,336 shares of the company’s stock worth $58,777,000 after buying an additional 189,510 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Dimensional Fund Advisors LP grew its stake in Rent-A-Center by 17.4% during the fourth quarter. Dimensional Fund Advisors LP now owns 1,451,173 shares of the company’s stock worth $32,723,000 after buying an additional 215,377 shares during the last quarter. Institutional investors own 86.08% of the company’s stock.

About Rent-A-Center

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Rent-A-Center, Inc engages in the provision of furniture, electronics, appliances, computers, and smartphones through flexible rental purchase agreements. It operates through the following segments: Rent-A-Center Business, Preferred Lease, Mexico, and Franchising. The Rent-A-Center Business segment consists of company-owned rent-to-own stores in the United States and Puerto Rico.