Yum! Brands, Inc. (NYSE:YUM) Receives $150.95 Average Price Target from Brokerages

Yum! Brands, Inc. (NYSE:YUM) has received an average recommendation of “Hold” from the twenty brokerages that are covering the company, MarketBeat reports. Fifteen equities research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and five have assigned a buy rating to the company. The average 12 month target price among brokers that have covered the stock in the last year is $150.95.

YUM has been the subject of several research reports. Wells Fargo & Company boosted their price objective on shares of Yum! Brands from $145.00 to $160.00 and gave the company an “equal weight” rating in a report on Wednesday, March 5th. The Goldman Sachs Group boosted their target price on shares of Yum! Brands from $140.00 to $155.00 and gave the company a “neutral” rating in a research note on Friday, February 7th. Cowen restated a “hold” rating on shares of Yum! Brands in a research note on Wednesday, March 5th. Sanford C. Bernstein cut Yum! Brands from an “outperform” rating to a “market perform” rating and reduced their price objective for the company from $140.00 to $135.00 in a research report on Wednesday, January 22nd. Finally, Morgan Stanley raised their target price on Yum! Brands from $146.00 to $150.00 and gave the stock an “equal weight” rating in a research report on Thursday.

Yum! Brands Stock Performance

Shares of NYSE:YUM opened at $155.09 on Friday. The firm has a market cap of $43.29 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 29.71, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 2.31 and a beta of 1.03. The business has a 50-day simple moving average of $141.01 and a two-hundred day simple moving average of $137.08. Yum! Brands has a fifty-two week low of $122.13 and a fifty-two week high of $163.30.

Yum! Brands Increases Dividend

The company also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Friday, March 7th. Investors of record on Friday, February 21st were issued a $0.71 dividend. The ex-dividend date was Friday, February 21st. This represents a $2.84 annualized dividend and a yield of 1.83%. This is an increase from Yum! Brands’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.67. Yum! Brands’s dividend payout ratio is currently 54.41%.

Insiders Place Their Bets

In other Yum! Brands news, VP David Eric Russell sold 5,000 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Wednesday, March 5th. The stock was sold at an average price of $158.66, for a total value of $793,300.00. Following the completion of the transaction, the vice president now directly owns 11,960 shares in the company, valued at $1,897,573.60. This represents a 29.48 % decrease in their position. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which is available through the SEC website. Also, insider Erika Burkhardt sold 597 shares of Yum! Brands stock in a transaction that occurred on Thursday, March 6th. The shares were sold at an average price of $159.07, for a total transaction of $94,964.79. Following the sale, the insider now owns 64 shares in the company, valued at approximately $10,180.48. The trade was a 90.32 % decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. In the last quarter, insiders sold 44,839 shares of company stock worth $7,136,292. Corporate insiders own 0.31% of the company’s stock.

Institutional Inflows and Outflows

Several hedge funds and other institutional investors have recently made changes to their positions in the stock. Geode Capital Management LLC lifted its position in shares of Yum! Brands by 2.2% in the fourth quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC now owns 7,604,632 shares of the restaurant operator’s stock worth $1,021,194,000 after buying an additional 163,462 shares in the last quarter. Northern Trust Corp raised its holdings in shares of Yum! Brands by 20.4% during the 4th quarter. Northern Trust Corp now owns 3,545,872 shares of the restaurant operator’s stock worth $475,714,000 after acquiring an additional 601,361 shares in the last quarter. Norges Bank bought a new position in shares of Yum! Brands during the 4th quarter valued at approximately $418,692,000. FMR LLC grew its holdings in shares of Yum! Brands by 1.0% in the fourth quarter. FMR LLC now owns 2,521,583 shares of the restaurant operator’s stock valued at $338,296,000 after purchasing an additional 24,681 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Bank of New York Mellon Corp increased its position in Yum! Brands by 4.2% in the fourth quarter. Bank of New York Mellon Corp now owns 2,355,367 shares of the restaurant operator’s stock worth $315,996,000 after purchasing an additional 94,026 shares during the last quarter. Institutional investors own 82.37% of the company’s stock.

About Yum! Brands

Yum! Brands, Inc, together with its subsidiaries, develops, operates, and franchises quick service restaurants worldwide. The company operates through the KFC Division, the Taco Bell Division, the Pizza Hut Division, and the Habit Burger Grill Division segments. It also operates restaurants under the KFC, Pizza Hut, Taco Bell, and The Habit Burger Grill brands, which specialize in chicken, pizza, made-to-order chargrilled burgers, sandwiches, Mexican-style food categories, and other food products.