Sprouts Farmers Market (NASDAQ:SFM) Earns “Market Perform” Rating from Oppenheimer

Sprouts Farmers Market (NASDAQ:SFM)‘s stock had its “market perform” rating reaffirmed by stock analysts at Oppenheimer in a research note issued on Monday, Benzinga reports.

Other analysts have also recently issued research reports about the company. The Goldman Sachs Group lifted their price objective on Sprouts Farmers Market from $56.00 to $71.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a research report on Tuesday, March 5th. Evercore ISI lowered their price target on shares of Sprouts Farmers Market from $62.00 to $61.00 and set an “in-line” rating for the company in a report on Tuesday, April 16th. Finally, Bank of America raised shares of Sprouts Farmers Market from an “underperform” rating to a “buy” rating and upped their price objective for the company from $30.00 to $70.00 in a research note on Tuesday, February 27th. Six investment analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and two have assigned a buy rating to the stock. According to MarketBeat, the company currently has a consensus rating of “Hold” and a consensus target price of $51.14.

Sprouts Farmers Market Price Performance

Shares of SFM traded up $0.92 during trading hours on Monday, reaching $67.90. The company had a trading volume of 1,561,087 shares, compared to its average volume of 1,299,961. The firm has a 50 day simple moving average of $62.51 and a 200-day simple moving average of $52.11. The company has a current ratio of 1.10, a quick ratio of 0.51 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.12. The company has a market capitalization of $6.87 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 27.09, a PEG ratio of 2.44 and a beta of 0.50. Sprouts Farmers Market has a 12-month low of $32.12 and a 12-month high of $68.03.

Sprouts Farmers Market (NASDAQ:SFM) last posted its earnings results on Thursday, February 22nd. The company reported $0.49 earnings per share for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $0.45 by $0.04. Sprouts Farmers Market had a net margin of 3.79% and a return on equity of 26.71%. The firm had revenue of $1.70 billion during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $1.69 billion. During the same period last year, the firm posted $0.42 EPS. The firm’s revenue for the quarter was up 7.7% on a year-over-year basis. Research analysts expect that Sprouts Farmers Market will post 2.95 earnings per share for the current year.

Insiders Place Their Bets

In other news, COO Nicholas Konat sold 31,846 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction on Friday, March 22nd. The stock was sold at an average price of $62.13, for a total transaction of $1,978,591.98. Following the completion of the sale, the chief operating officer now directly owns 82,495 shares in the company, valued at approximately $5,125,414.35. The transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which is available at this link. In other Sprouts Farmers Market news, COO Nicholas Konat sold 31,846 shares of Sprouts Farmers Market stock in a transaction that occurred on Friday, March 22nd. The shares were sold at an average price of $62.13, for a total transaction of $1,978,591.98. Following the transaction, the chief operating officer now directly owns 82,495 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $5,125,414.35. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which is available at this link. Also, VP Stacy W. Hilgendorf sold 3,774 shares of the stock in a transaction on Thursday, February 29th. The stock was sold at an average price of $62.26, for a total transaction of $234,969.24. Following the completion of the sale, the vice president now directly owns 10,748 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $669,170.48. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders have sold a total of 160,852 shares of company stock valued at $10,032,745 over the last quarter. Company insiders own 1.10% of the company’s stock.

Hedge Funds Weigh In On Sprouts Farmers Market

A number of hedge funds have recently made changes to their positions in SFM. VisionPoint Advisory Group LLC purchased a new position in shares of Sprouts Farmers Market in the 3rd quarter valued at $25,000. Rise Advisors LLC purchased a new stake in Sprouts Farmers Market during the 1st quarter worth $26,000. Blue Bell Private Wealth Management LLC purchased a new stake in Sprouts Farmers Market during the 1st quarter worth $36,000. Bank Julius Baer & Co. Ltd Zurich purchased a new stake in Sprouts Farmers Market during the 4th quarter worth $38,000. Finally, GAMMA Investing LLC purchased a new stake in Sprouts Farmers Market during the 4th quarter worth $43,000.

About Sprouts Farmers Market

Sprouts Farmers Market, Inc, together with its subsidiaries, engages in the retailing of fresh, natural, and organic food products under the Sprouts brand in the United States. It offers perishable product categories, including fresh produce, meat and meat alternatives, seafood, deli, bakery, floral, and dairy and dairy alternatives; and non-perishable product categories, such as grocery, vitamins and supplements, bulk items, frozen foods, beer and wine, and natural health and body care.