Bread Financial Holdings, Inc. (NYSE:BFH) Receives Consensus Rating of “Reduce” from Brokerages

Shares of Bread Financial Holdings, Inc. (NYSE:BFH) have earned a consensus recommendation of “Reduce” from the thirteen ratings firms that are currently covering the firm, MarketBeat.com reports. Four analysts have rated the stock with a sell recommendation, seven have given a hold recommendation and two have given a buy recommendation to the company. The average 12-month price objective among brokerages that have updated their coverage on the stock in the last year is $36.08.

Several brokerages have recently weighed in on BFH. Royal Bank of Canada reissued a “sector perform” rating and set a $36.00 target price on shares of Bread Financial in a research report on Friday, January 26th. Barclays cut their target price on Bread Financial from $28.00 to $27.00 and set an “underweight” rating on the stock in a research report on Friday, January 26th. Oppenheimer raised Bread Financial from a “market perform” rating to an “outperform” rating and set a $52.00 target price on the stock in a research report on Friday, January 26th. JPMorgan Chase & Co. raised their target price on Bread Financial from $36.00 to $40.00 and gave the stock a “neutral” rating in a research report on Friday, January 26th. Finally, Morgan Stanley downgraded Bread Financial from an “equal weight” rating to an “underweight” rating and dropped their price target for the stock from $31.00 to $25.00 in a research note on Wednesday, December 13th.

Bread Financial Price Performance

BFH opened at $35.48 on Monday. The stock’s 50-day moving average price is $36.87 and its 200 day moving average price is $32.84. Bread Financial has a 12-month low of $23.19 and a 12-month high of $41.89. The company has a current ratio of 1.18, a quick ratio of 1.18 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.48. The firm has a market cap of $1.75 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 2.48, a PEG ratio of 0.17 and a beta of 1.93.

Bread Financial (NYSE:BFH) last posted its quarterly earnings results on Thursday, January 25th. The company reported $0.90 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of ($0.67) by $1.57. The company had revenue of $1,000.00 million for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $984.36 million. Bread Financial had a return on equity of 26.24% and a net margin of 13.87%. Bread Financial’s revenue for the quarter was down 3.2% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same quarter last year, the company earned ($2.68) EPS. As a group, sell-side analysts expect that Bread Financial will post 7.12 earnings per share for the current year.

Bread Financial Dividend Announcement

The firm also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Friday, March 15th. Stockholders of record on Friday, February 9th were issued a $0.21 dividend. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Thursday, February 8th. This represents a $0.84 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 2.37%. Bread Financial’s dividend payout ratio is currently 5.87%.

Insider Buying and Selling

In related news, major shareholder Turtle Creek Asset Management sold 25,000 shares of Bread Financial stock in a transaction on Thursday, January 11th. The stock was sold at an average price of $32.44, for a total transaction of $811,000.00. Following the completion of the transaction, the insider now directly owns 313,454 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $10,168,447.76. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which is accessible through the SEC website. Over the last ninety days, insiders sold 255,000 shares of company stock valued at $8,280,400. 0.20% of the stock is owned by insiders.

Hedge Funds Weigh In On Bread Financial

A number of institutional investors have recently made changes to their positions in the stock. Vanguard Group Inc. purchased a new stake in shares of Bread Financial in the third quarter valued at $155,419,000. BlackRock Inc. grew its position in shares of Bread Financial by 0.8% in the first quarter. BlackRock Inc. now owns 4,889,894 shares of the company’s stock valued at $148,262,000 after purchasing an additional 38,371 shares during the period. Dimensional Fund Advisors LP grew its position in shares of Bread Financial by 9.3% in the fourth quarter. Dimensional Fund Advisors LP now owns 3,000,035 shares of the company’s stock valued at $98,823,000 after purchasing an additional 256,221 shares during the period. Wellington Management Group LLP grew its position in shares of Bread Financial by 7.8% in the fourth quarter. Wellington Management Group LLP now owns 2,107,253 shares of the company’s stock valued at $69,413,000 after purchasing an additional 152,954 shares during the period. Finally, State Street Corp grew its position in shares of Bread Financial by 0.7% in the first quarter. State Street Corp now owns 1,958,208 shares of the company’s stock valued at $59,373,000 after purchasing an additional 13,819 shares during the period. 99.52% of the stock is owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

About Bread Financial

Bread Financial Holdings, Inc provides tech-forward payment and lending solutions to customers and consumer-based industries in North America. It offers credit card and other loans financing services, including risk management solutions, account origination, and funding services for private label and co-brand credit card programs, as well as through Bread partnerships; and Comenity-branded general purpose cash-back credit.