Flowers Foods (NYSE:FLO) Shares Gap Down to $28.84

Shares of Flowers Foods, Inc. (NYSE:FLO – Get Rating) gapped down before the market opened on Friday . The stock had previously closed at $28.84, but opened at $26.58. Flowers Foods shares last traded at $26.54, with a volume of 2,521,284 shares traded.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

A number of equities analysts recently issued reports on the stock. Deutsche Bank Aktiengesellschaft lowered their price objective on shares of Flowers Foods from $27.00 to $26.00 and set a “hold” rating for the company in a research report on Monday, March 20th. StockNews.com assumed coverage on shares of Flowers Foods in a research report on Thursday. They set a “buy” rating for the company.

Flowers Foods Stock Down 9.9 %

The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.62, a quick ratio of 1.13 and a current ratio of 1.43. The stock has a market capitalization of $5.49 billion, a P/E ratio of 25.99 and a beta of 0.40. The stock’s fifty day simple moving average is $27.53 and its two-hundred day simple moving average is $28.04.

Flowers Foods (NYSE:FLO – Get Rating) last posted its earnings results on Friday, May 19th. The company reported $0.38 earnings per share for the quarter, topping analysts’ consensus estimates of $0.36 by $0.02. Flowers Foods had a net margin of 4.35% and a return on equity of 18.02%. The firm had revenue of $1.53 billion for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $1.55 billion. During the same period in the previous year, the firm posted $0.44 EPS. The company’s revenue for the quarter was up 6.9% compared to the same quarter last year. As a group, research analysts expect that Flowers Foods, Inc. will post 1.25 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Institutional Investors Weigh In On Flowers Foods

A number of institutional investors have recently added to or reduced their stakes in the business. Wellington Shields Capital Management LLC boosted its stake in shares of Flowers Foods by 2,563.0% in the 4th quarter. Wellington Shields Capital Management LLC now owns 14,174,952 shares of the company’s stock valued at $407,388,000 after purchasing an additional 13,642,655 shares during the last quarter. State Street Corp boosted its stake in shares of Flowers Foods by 206.0% in the 1st quarter. State Street Corp now owns 17,286,504 shares of the company’s stock valued at $473,823,000 after purchasing an additional 11,637,370 shares during the last quarter. Wellington Shields & Co. LLC boosted its stake in shares of Flowers Foods by 3,245.4% in the 4th quarter. Wellington Shields & Co. LLC now owns 6,849,098 shares of the company’s stock valued at $196,843,000 after purchasing an additional 6,644,368 shares during the last quarter. Macquarie Group Ltd. boosted its stake in shares of Flowers Foods by 59,422.9% in the 4th quarter. Macquarie Group Ltd. now owns 2,047,587 shares of the company’s stock valued at $58,848,000 after purchasing an additional 2,044,147 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Gibson Wealth Advisors LLC boosted its stake in shares of Flowers Foods by 6,186.6% in the 4th quarter. Gibson Wealth Advisors LLC now owns 1,406,940 shares of the company’s stock valued at $39,526,000 after purchasing an additional 1,384,560 shares during the last quarter. 66.81% of the stock is owned by institutional investors.

About Flowers Foods

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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.