Business First Bancshares (NASDAQ:BFST) Stock Rating Upgraded by Raymond James

Raymond James upgraded shares of Business First Bancshares (NASDAQ:BFST) from a market perform rating to an outperform rating in a research note published on Thursday, MarketBeat.com reports. Raymond James currently has $30.00 price objective on the stock.

Separately, Hovde Group cut shares of Business First Bancshares from an “outperform” rating to a “market perform” rating and upped their price objective for the stock from $30.00 to $31.50 in a research report on Wednesday, November 13th.

Business First Bancshares Stock Up 0.4 %

NASDAQ BFST opened at $25.93 on Thursday. The business has a fifty day moving average price of $27.46 and a two-hundred day moving average price of $24.66. The stock has a market capitalization of $766.00 million, a PE ratio of 11.18 and a beta of 0.98. Business First Bancshares has a fifty-two week low of $18.97 and a fifty-two week high of $30.30. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.75, a current ratio of 0.99 and a quick ratio of 0.99.

Business First Bancshares (NASDAQ:BFST) last announced its quarterly earnings data on Thursday, October 24th. The company reported $0.68 earnings per share for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $0.57 by $0.11. Business First Bancshares had a return on equity of 11.57% and a net margin of 14.92%. The business had revenue of $113.52 million during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $65.24 million. During the same period in the prior year, the company earned $0.71 EPS. Equities analysts expect that Business First Bancshares will post 2.29 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Business First Bancshares Dividend Announcement

The company also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Saturday, November 30th. Stockholders of record on Friday, November 15th were issued a dividend of $0.14 per share. This represents a $0.56 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 2.16%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Friday, November 15th. Business First Bancshares’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is currently 24.14%.

Insider Activity at Business First Bancshares

In related news, Director Joseph Vernon Johnson sold 6,000 shares of the stock in a transaction on Friday, November 1st. The stock was sold at an average price of $26.36, for a total value of $158,160.00. Following the completion of the sale, the director now directly owns 185,557 shares in the company, valued at $4,891,282.52. This represents a 3.13 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which is available at this hyperlink. Insiders sold a total of 12,480 shares of company stock worth $329,972 in the last quarter. 6.45% of the stock is owned by insiders.

Institutional Investors Weigh In On Business First Bancshares

A number of institutional investors have recently made changes to their positions in BFST. Mendon Capital Advisors Corp raised its position in shares of Business First Bancshares by 1,380.0% during the second quarter. Mendon Capital Advisors Corp now owns 370,000 shares of the company’s stock worth $8,051,000 after acquiring an additional 345,000 shares during the last quarter. Janus Henderson Group PLC increased its position in Business First Bancshares by 921.9% during the 3rd quarter. Janus Henderson Group PLC now owns 295,275 shares of the company’s stock valued at $7,580,000 after purchasing an additional 266,380 shares during the period. Charles Schwab Investment Management Inc. raised its holdings in Business First Bancshares by 194.8% during the 3rd quarter. Charles Schwab Investment Management Inc. now owns 196,238 shares of the company’s stock worth $5,037,000 after purchasing an additional 129,677 shares during the last quarter. American Century Companies Inc. lifted its position in shares of Business First Bancshares by 19.6% in the 2nd quarter. American Century Companies Inc. now owns 418,869 shares of the company’s stock worth $9,115,000 after purchasing an additional 68,506 shares during the period. Finally, Dimensional Fund Advisors LP boosted its stake in shares of Business First Bancshares by 8.2% in the 2nd quarter. Dimensional Fund Advisors LP now owns 669,530 shares of the company’s stock valued at $14,568,000 after purchasing an additional 50,955 shares during the last quarter. Institutional investors own 47.35% of the company’s stock.

Business First Bancshares Company Profile

Business First Bancshares, Inc operates as the bank holding company for b1BANK that provides various banking products and services in Louisiana and Texas. It offers various deposit products and services, including checking, demand, money market, time, and savings accounts; and certificates of deposits, remote deposit capture, and direct deposit services.