Amundi Lowers Position in Wingstop Inc. (NASDAQ:WING)

Amundi reduced its stake in Wingstop Inc. (NASDAQ:WING) by 66.5% during the 4th quarter, Holdings Channel reports. The institutional investor owned 4,778 shares of the restaurant operator’s stock after selling 9,476 shares during the period. Amundi’s holdings in Wingstop were worth $1,331,000 at the end of the most recent quarter.

Other large investors also recently bought and sold shares of the company. Sumitomo Mitsui Trust Group Inc. boosted its position in shares of Wingstop by 28.8% during the 3rd quarter. Sumitomo Mitsui Trust Group Inc. now owns 2,770 shares of the restaurant operator’s stock worth $1,153,000 after purchasing an additional 620 shares during the period. KBC Group NV boosted its position in shares of Wingstop by 8.6% during the third quarter. KBC Group NV now owns 757 shares of the restaurant operator’s stock worth $315,000 after buying an additional 60 shares during the period. OneDigital Investment Advisors LLC grew its stake in shares of Wingstop by 9.1% in the third quarter. OneDigital Investment Advisors LLC now owns 686 shares of the restaurant operator’s stock valued at $285,000 after buying an additional 57 shares in the last quarter. Natixis Advisors LLC raised its holdings in shares of Wingstop by 6.6% in the 3rd quarter. Natixis Advisors LLC now owns 13,269 shares of the restaurant operator’s stock valued at $5,521,000 after buying an additional 822 shares during the period. Finally, Claro Advisors LLC acquired a new position in Wingstop during the 3rd quarter worth about $245,000.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

Several equities analysts have weighed in on the company. Wedbush dropped their target price on Wingstop from $390.00 to $355.00 and set an “outperform” rating for the company in a research report on Thursday, February 20th. Morgan Stanley cut their target price on shares of Wingstop from $389.00 to $375.00 and set an “overweight” rating on the stock in a research note on Thursday, February 20th. Stifel Nicolaus decreased their price target on shares of Wingstop from $375.00 to $350.00 and set a “buy” rating for the company in a research report on Friday, February 28th. BMO Capital Markets cut their price objective on Wingstop from $335.00 to $300.00 and set a “market perform” rating on the stock in a research report on Thursday, February 20th. Finally, Northcoast Research lowered Wingstop from a “buy” rating to a “neutral” rating in a report on Friday, February 21st. Seven research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and fourteen have assigned a buy rating to the company. According to MarketBeat, Wingstop has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $357.67.

Wingstop Trading Down 3.3 %

Shares of Wingstop stock opened at $207.00 on Wednesday. The company has a fifty day simple moving average of $266.14 and a 200-day simple moving average of $320.74. The stock has a market cap of $5.93 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 55.80, a PEG ratio of 2.27 and a beta of 1.88. Wingstop Inc. has a 12-month low of $205.60 and a 12-month high of $433.86.

Wingstop Dividend Announcement

The company also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Friday, March 28th. Stockholders of record on Friday, March 7th will be given a dividend of $0.27 per share. This represents a $1.08 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 0.52%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Friday, March 7th. Wingstop’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is currently 29.11%.

Wingstop announced that its Board of Directors has initiated a share repurchase plan on Thursday, December 5th that permits the company to repurchase $500.00 million in shares. This repurchase authorization permits the restaurant operator to repurchase up to 5.1% of its shares through open market purchases. Shares repurchase plans are generally an indication that the company’s leadership believes its shares are undervalued.

Wingstop Profile

Wingstop Inc, together with its subsidiaries, franchises and operates restaurants under the Wingstop brand. Its restaurants offer classic wings, boneless wings, tenders, and hand-sauced-and-tossed in various flavors, as well as chicken sandwiches with fries and hand-cut carrots and celery that are cooked-to-order.