Empire (TSE:EMP.A) Shares Pass Above 200 Day Moving Average – Time to Sell?

Empire Company Limited (TSE:EMP.A)’s share price passed above its two hundred day moving average during trading on Wednesday . The stock has a two hundred day moving average of C$48.34 and traded as high as C$48.34. Empire shares last traded at C$47.97, with a volume of 537,831 shares trading hands.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

Separately, Scotiabank lowered Empire from an “outperform” rating to a “sector perform” rating and set a C$52.00 price objective for the company. in a report on Thursday, April 9th. Two investment analysts have rated the stock with a Buy rating and four have assigned a Hold rating to the stock. According to MarketBeat.com, the stock presently has a consensus rating of “Hold” and an average price target of C$52.83.

Empire Stock Performance

The firm has a market capitalization of C$10.87 billion, a PE ratio of 71.60, a P/E/G ratio of 16.20 and a beta of -0.04. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 135.51, a current ratio of 0.79 and a quick ratio of 0.29. The firm has a fifty day moving average price of C$48.06 and a 200 day moving average price of C$48.34.

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

Empire Dividend Announcement

The business also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Thursday, April 30th. Stockholders of record on Thursday, April 30th were issued a dividend of $0.22 per share. 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 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.