Verity & Verity LLC Lowers Holdings in Sysco Co. (NYSE:SYY)

Verity & Verity LLC lowered its position in shares of Sysco Co. (NYSE:SYY) by 98.4% during the 2nd quarter, HoldingsChannel.com reports. The institutional investor owned 5,297 shares of the company’s stock after selling 316,396 shares during the period. Verity & Verity LLC’s holdings in Sysco were worth $378,000 as of its most recent SEC filing.

Several other institutional investors and hedge funds have also recently made changes to their positions in SYY. Capital World Investors raised its holdings in shares of Sysco by 17.5% in the 1st quarter. Capital World Investors now owns 10,984,950 shares of the company’s stock valued at $891,758,000 after purchasing an additional 1,637,232 shares in the last quarter. Ameriprise Financial Inc. raised its stake in Sysco by 26.1% in the second quarter. Ameriprise Financial Inc. now owns 8,623,178 shares of the company’s stock worth $615,076,000 after buying an additional 1,782,180 shares in the last quarter. Capital Research Global Investors lifted its holdings in Sysco by 112.8% during the first quarter. Capital Research Global Investors now owns 6,612,092 shares of the company’s stock worth $536,770,000 after buying an additional 3,504,740 shares during the period. Diamond Hill Capital Management Inc. lifted its holdings in Sysco by 49.8% during the second quarter. Diamond Hill Capital Management Inc. now owns 6,012,607 shares of the company’s stock worth $429,240,000 after buying an additional 1,997,895 shares during the period. Finally, ProShare Advisors LLC increased its holdings in shares of Sysco by 103.0% in the 2nd quarter. ProShare Advisors LLC now owns 4,746,176 shares of the company’s stock valued at $338,830,000 after acquiring an additional 2,408,226 shares during the period. 83.41% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors.

Analyst Ratings Changes

A number of brokerages recently weighed in on SYY. Truist Financial dropped their price objective on Sysco from $87.00 to $85.00 and set a “buy” rating on the stock in a research report on Monday, June 24th. JPMorgan Chase & Co. raised their price target on shares of Sysco from $85.00 to $88.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a report on Monday, September 16th. Morgan Stanley reduced their price objective on shares of Sysco from $82.00 to $81.00 and set an “equal weight” rating for the company in a research note on Tuesday, July 16th. StockNews.com upgraded shares of Sysco from a “buy” rating to a “strong-buy” rating in a research note on Wednesday. Finally, Bank of America lowered their price objective on Sysco from $91.00 to $87.00 and set a “buy” rating for the company in a research report on Thursday, July 18th. Two research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, ten have given a buy rating and one has issued a strong buy rating to the company’s stock. According to data from MarketBeat.com, the company currently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus target price of $86.08.

Sysco Stock Down 0.4 %

Sysco stock opened at $77.74 on Wednesday. Sysco Co. has a 52 week low of $62.24 and a 52 week high of $82.89. The firm has a market cap of $38.21 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 18.96, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 2.02 and a beta of 1.20. The business’s 50-day moving average price is $76.39 and its 200 day moving average price is $75.37. The company has a quick ratio of 0.69, a current ratio of 1.20 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 6.19.

Sysco (NYSE:SYY) last posted its earnings results on Tuesday, July 30th. The company reported $1.39 earnings per share for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $1.38 by $0.01. Sysco had a net margin of 2.48% and a return on equity of 102.09%. The firm had revenue of $20.56 billion during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $20.51 billion. During the same period in the previous year, the firm earned $1.34 EPS. The business’s quarterly revenue was up 4.2% on a year-over-year basis. As a group, sell-side analysts anticipate that Sysco Co. will post 4.6 earnings per share for the current year.

Sysco Dividend Announcement

The firm also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Friday, October 25th. Stockholders of record on Friday, October 4th will be given a dividend of $0.51 per share. This represents a $2.04 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 2.62%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Friday, October 4th. Sysco’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is presently 49.76%.

Sysco Profile

Sysco Corporation, through its subsidiaries, engages in the marketing and distribution of various food and related products to the foodservice or food-away-from-home industry in the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, France, and internationally. It operates through U.S. Foodservice Operations, International Foodservice Operations, SYGMA, and Other segments.