BJ’s Restaurants’ (BJRI) Outperform Rating Reaffirmed at Wedbush

Wedbush reiterated their outperform rating on shares of BJ’s Restaurants (NASDAQ:BJRI) in a research report sent to investors on Friday morning, Benzinga reports. Wedbush currently has a $43.00 target price on the restaurant operator’s stock. Wedbush also issued estimates for BJ’s Restaurants’ FY2024 earnings at $1.26 EPS, Q3 2025 earnings at $0.10 EPS and Q4 2025 earnings at $0.39 EPS.

A number of other brokerages also recently issued reports on BJRI. Barclays cut their target price on BJ’s Restaurants from $36.00 to $35.00 and set an “underweight” rating for the company in a research note on Friday, July 26th. Benchmark downgraded BJ’s Restaurants from a “buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a research report on Friday, July 26th. One analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, four have assigned a hold rating and two have given a buy rating to the stock. According to data from MarketBeat.com, BJ’s Restaurants has a consensus rating of “Hold” and a consensus target price of $38.00.

BJ’s Restaurants Price Performance

BJRI stock traded down $3.10 during midday trading on Friday, reaching $33.99. The stock had a trading volume of 1,044,615 shares, compared to its average volume of 390,162. The company’s fifty day simple moving average is $32.88 and its 200 day simple moving average is $33.45. The company has a current ratio of 0.35, a quick ratio of 0.27 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.16. The company has a market cap of $794.69 million, a price-to-earnings ratio of 27.86, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 1.88 and a beta of 2.12. BJ’s Restaurants has a 52-week low of $26.25 and a 52-week high of $38.87.

BJ’s Restaurants (NASDAQ:BJRI) last announced its quarterly earnings data on Thursday, October 31st. The restaurant operator reported ($0.13) earnings per share for the quarter, missing analysts’ consensus estimates of $0.03 by ($0.16). The firm had revenue of $325.70 million during the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $324.97 million. BJ’s Restaurants had a net margin of 2.19% and a return on equity of 7.83%. The company’s revenue for the quarter was up 2.2% on a year-over-year basis. During the same quarter in the previous year, the business posted ($0.16) EPS. As a group, sell-side analysts predict that BJ’s Restaurants will post 1.42 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Insider Buying and Selling at BJ’s Restaurants

In other news, CEO C Bradford Richmond bought 2,500 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction on Friday, September 6th. The stock was bought at an average cost of $29.40 per share, with a total value of $73,500.00. Following the transaction, the chief executive officer now directly owns 16,905 shares in the company, valued at $497,007. The trade was a 0.00 % increase in their position. The acquisition was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available at this hyperlink. 4.90% of the stock is currently owned by corporate insiders.

Hedge Funds Weigh In On BJ’s Restaurants

Several hedge funds and other institutional investors have recently made changes to their positions in the stock. Olympiad Research LP purchased a new position in shares of BJ’s Restaurants in the 3rd quarter valued at about $469,000. Emerald Advisers LLC lifted its stake in BJ’s Restaurants by 0.7% during the third quarter. Emerald Advisers LLC now owns 569,221 shares of the restaurant operator’s stock worth $18,534,000 after purchasing an additional 4,009 shares during the last quarter. US Bancorp DE lifted its stake in BJ’s Restaurants by 142.9% during the third quarter. US Bancorp DE now owns 1,540 shares of the restaurant operator’s stock worth $50,000 after purchasing an additional 906 shares during the last quarter. New York State Teachers Retirement System lifted its stake in BJ’s Restaurants by 15.0% during the third quarter. New York State Teachers Retirement System now owns 34,097 shares of the restaurant operator’s stock worth $1,110,000 after purchasing an additional 4,440 shares during the last quarter. Finally, SG Americas Securities LLC purchased a new stake in BJ’s Restaurants during the third quarter worth approximately $500,000. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 99.95% of the company’s stock.

About BJ’s Restaurants

BJ’s Restaurants, Inc owns and operates casual dining restaurants in the United States. Its restaurants offer pizzas, craft and other beers, appetizers, entrées, pastas, sandwiches, specialty salads, and desserts under brand name Pizookie. The company was formerly known as Chicago Pizza & Brewery, Inc and changed its name to BJ’s Restaurants, Inc in August 2004.