BBVA Banco Frances (NYSE:BBAR) Shares Gap Up on Analyst Upgrade

Shares of BBVA Banco Frances S.A. (NYSE:BBAR) gapped up prior to trading on Monday after Citigroup upgraded the stock from a neutral rating to a buy rating. The stock had previously closed at $16.57, but opened at $17.46. BBVA Banco Frances shares last traded at $16.8660, with a volume of 776,736 shares traded.

A number of other equities research analysts have also weighed in on BBAR. Wall Street Zen upgraded BBVA Banco Frances from a “sell” rating to a “hold” rating in a research report on Sunday, September 7th. Zacks Research lowered BBVA Banco Frances from a “hold” rating to a “strong sell” rating in a research report on Monday, September 8th. Hsbc Global Res upgraded BBVA Banco Frances to a “strong-buy” rating in a research report on Wednesday, October 1st. Weiss Ratings restated a “hold (c)” rating on shares of BBVA Banco Frances in a research report on Wednesday, October 8th. Finally, Itau BBA Securities upgraded BBVA Banco Frances from a “market perform” rating to an “outperform” rating in a research report on Monday, October 27th. One research analyst has rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, four have given a Buy rating, one has issued a Hold rating and one has issued a Sell rating to the company’s stock. According to MarketBeat.com, the stock presently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average price target of $20.67.

Institutional Inflows and Outflows

A number of large investors have recently added to or reduced their stakes in BBAR. GAMMA Investing LLC raised its stake in BBVA Banco Frances by 27.1% during the first quarter. GAMMA Investing LLC now owns 5,303 shares of the bank’s stock valued at $96,000 after buying an additional 1,132 shares during the last quarter. Private Advisor Group LLC purchased a new position in BBVA Banco Frances during the first quarter valued at $224,000. XTX Topco Ltd raised its stake in BBVA Banco Frances by 97.3% during the first quarter. XTX Topco Ltd now owns 32,603 shares of the bank’s stock valued at $591,000 after buying an additional 16,082 shares during the last quarter. Baader Bank Aktiengesellschaft purchased a new position in BBVA Banco Frances during the first quarter valued at $312,000. Finally, Gemsstock Ltd. raised its stake in BBVA Banco Frances by 62.5% during the first quarter. Gemsstock Ltd. now owns 241,274 shares of the bank’s stock valued at $4,372,000 after buying an additional 92,758 shares during the last quarter.

BBVA Banco Frances Stock Up 3.7%

The stock has a 50 day simple moving average of $10.50 and a 200-day simple moving average of $15.23. The firm has a market cap of $3.51 billion, a PE ratio of 12.82 and a beta of 1.13. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.27, a current ratio of 1.11 and a quick ratio of 1.11.

BBVA Banco Frances (NYSE:BBAR) last announced its quarterly earnings data on Wednesday, August 20th. The bank reported $0.24 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, missing analysts’ consensus estimates of $0.37 by ($0.13). The company had revenue of $524.41 million for the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $727.31 billion. BBVA Banco Frances had a net margin of 6.65% and a return on equity of 10.24%. Sell-side analysts predict that BBVA Banco Frances S.A. will post 1.94 EPS for the current fiscal year.

BBVA Banco Frances Cuts Dividend

The firm also recently declared a monthly dividend, which was paid on Monday, October 27th. Stockholders of record on Monday, October 20th were paid a $0.0311 dividend. The ex-dividend date was Monday, October 20th. This represents a c) annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 2.2%. BBVA Banco Frances’s payout ratio is currently 21.64%.

About BBVA Banco Frances

Banco BBVA Argentina SA provides various banking products and services to individuals and companies in Argentina. The company provides retail banking products and services, such as checking and savings accounts, time deposits, credit cards financing, consumer and pledge loans, mortgages, insurance, and investment products to individuals; and small and medium-sized companies products and services, including financing products, factoring, checking accounts, time deposits, transactional and payroll services, insurance, and investment products to private-sector companies.