Empire (TSE:EMP.A) Share Price Passes Above 200-Day Moving Average – Should You Sell?

Shares of Empire Company Limited (TSE:EMP.A) passed above its 200-day moving average during trading on Friday . The stock has a 200-day moving average of C$48.16 and traded as high as C$50.05. Empire shares last traded at C$49.33, with a volume of 261,149 shares trading hands.

Wall Street Analyst Weigh In

Separately, Scotiabank downgraded Empire from an “outperform” rating to a “sector perform” rating and set a C$52.00 target price on the stock. in a research note on Thursday, April 9th. Two research analysts have rated the stock with a Buy rating and four have assigned a Hold rating to the company’s stock. Based on data from MarketBeat, the stock presently has an average rating of “Hold” and an average target price of C$52.83.

Empire Stock Down 1.3%

The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 135.51, a quick ratio of 0.29 and a current ratio of 0.79. The firm has a fifty day moving average price of C$47.85 and a 200 day moving average price of C$48.16. The firm has a market capitalization of C$11.18 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 73.63, a PEG ratio of 16.20 and a beta of -0.20.

Empire (TSE:EMP.A) last posted its quarterly earnings results on Thursday, March 12th. The company reported C$0.72 EPS for the quarter. The business had revenue of C$7.89 billion during the quarter. Empire had a return on equity of 12.94% and a net margin of 2.18%. As a group, sell-side analysts expect that Empire Company Limited will post 2.9581227 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Empire Dividend Announcement

The firm also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Thursday, April 30th. Stockholders of record on Thursday, April 30th were issued a $0.22 dividend. This represents a $0.88 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 1.8%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Wednesday, April 15th. Empire’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is currently 128.36%.

About Empire

Empire Co Ltd key businesses are food retailing, investments, and other operations. The food retailing division operates through Empire’s subsidiary Sobeys and represents nearly all of the company’s income. This segment owns, affiliates, or franchises more than 1,500 stores in 10 provinces, under retail banners including Sobeys, Safeway, IGA, Foodland, FreshCo, Thrifty Foods, Lawton’s Drug Stores, and multiple retail fuel locations. The company’s investment and other operations segment include the investment in Crombie REIT, which is an open-ended Canadian real estate investment trust, as well as the Genstar Development Partnership.