Flowers Foods (NYSE:FLO) Coverage Initiated at StockNews.com

Stock analysts at StockNews.com assumed coverage on shares of Flowers Foods (NYSE:FLO – Get Rating) in a report issued on Thursday. The brokerage set a “buy” rating on the stock.

Separately, Deutsche Bank Aktiengesellschaft upgraded Flowers Foods from a “sell” rating to a “hold” rating and set a $27.00 price objective for the company in a research report on Friday, March 3rd.

Flowers Foods Price Performance

Shares of NYSE FLO opened at $27.22 on Thursday. Flowers Foods has a twelve month low of $24.15 and a twelve month high of $30.16. The company has a current ratio of 1.43, a quick ratio of 1.13 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.62. The company has a market capitalization of $5.75 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 25.44 and a beta of 0.39. The business has a 50 day simple moving average of $27.65 and a 200-day simple moving average of $27.64.

Flowers Foods (NYSE:FLO – Get Rating) last issued its quarterly earnings results on Friday, February 10th. The company reported $0.23 earnings per share for the quarter, meeting analysts’ consensus estimates of $0.23. Flowers Foods had a return on equity of 18.77% and a net margin of 4.75%. The business had revenue of $1.08 billion during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $1.10 billion. During the same period in the previous year, the business earned $0.20 EPS. The business’s quarterly revenue was up 10.1% on a year-over-year basis. As a group, equities research analysts expect that Flowers Foods will post 1.25 earnings per share for the current year.

Institutional Inflows and Outflows

A number of hedge funds and other institutional investors have recently added to or reduced their stakes in the stock. Vanguard Group Inc. boosted its position in Flowers Foods by 2.2% during the 3rd quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 19,913,247 shares of the company’s stock worth $491,657,000 after acquiring an additional 426,547 shares during the period. BlackRock Inc. boosted its position in Flowers Foods by 0.3% during the 3rd quarter. BlackRock Inc. now owns 18,854,729 shares of the company’s stock worth $465,523,000 after acquiring an additional 59,117 shares during the period. Wellington Shields Capital Management LLC boosted its position in Flowers Foods by 2,563.0% during the 4th quarter. Wellington Shields Capital Management LLC now owns 14,174,952 shares of the company’s stock worth $407,388,000 after acquiring an additional 13,642,655 shares during the period. Wellington Shields & Co. LLC boosted its position in Flowers Foods by 3,245.4% during the 4th quarter. Wellington Shields & Co. LLC now owns 6,849,098 shares of the company’s stock worth $196,843,000 after acquiring an additional 6,644,368 shares during the period. Finally, Renaissance Technologies LLC boosted its position in Flowers Foods by 8.1% during the 1st quarter. Renaissance Technologies LLC now owns 5,999,785 shares of the company’s stock worth $154,254,000 after acquiring an additional 450,441 shares during the period. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 66.81% of the company’s stock.

Flowers Foods Company Profile

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Flowers Foods, Inc engages in the manufacture and sale of bakery products. The firm offers bakery foods for retail and food service customers in the United States. Its brands include Nature’s Own, Dave’s Killer Bread, Wonder, Canyon Bakehouse, Tastykake and Mrs. Freshley’s. The company was founded by William Howard Flowers, Sr.