Vital Farms, Inc. (NASDAQ:VITL) Receives Consensus Recommendation of “Buy” from Analysts

Shares of Vital Farms, Inc. (NASDAQ:VITL) have been assigned an average recommendation of “Buy” from the nine research firms that are covering the company, Marketbeat.com reports. Nine equities research analysts have rated the stock with a buy recommendation. The average 1 year price target among brokers that have covered the stock in the last year is $43.13.

A number of brokerages recently issued reports on VITL. Stifel Nicolaus raised Vital Farms from a “hold” rating to a “buy” rating and set a $44.00 target price on the stock in a research report on Friday, February 28th. Craig Hallum started coverage on shares of Vital Farms in a report on Friday, December 20th. They set a “buy” rating and a $50.00 target price for the company. William Blair reissued an “outperform” rating on shares of Vital Farms in a research report on Friday, February 28th. DA Davidson decreased their price objective on Vital Farms from $44.00 to $42.00 and set a “buy” rating for the company in a report on Friday, March 14th. Finally, Telsey Advisory Group reaffirmed an “outperform” rating and issued a $52.00 target price on shares of Vital Farms in a research report on Thursday, March 13th.

Vital Farms Price Performance

NASDAQ VITL opened at $32.99 on Friday. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.04, a quick ratio of 2.81 and a current ratio of 3.24. Vital Farms has a 52-week low of $24.75 and a 52-week high of $48.41. The business has a 50 day simple moving average of $32.30 and a 200 day simple moving average of $35.53. The stock has a market cap of $1.46 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 29.46 and a beta of 0.96.

Vital Farms (NASDAQ:VITL) last issued its quarterly earnings data on Thursday, February 27th. The company reported $0.23 EPS for the quarter, topping analysts’ consensus estimates of $0.15 by $0.08. The business had revenue of $165.99 million for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $160.32 million. Vital Farms had a net margin of 8.68% and a return on equity of 22.29%. Analysts anticipate that Vital Farms will post 1.11 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Insiders Place Their Bets

In other Vital Farms news, CEO Russell Diez-Canseco sold 45,124 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction on Monday, April 14th. The shares were sold at an average price of $33.69, for a total value of $1,520,227.56. Following the transaction, the chief executive officer now directly owns 703,736 shares in the company, valued at $23,708,865.84. The trade was a 6.03 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available at this hyperlink. Also, insider Matthew Ohayer sold 24,000 shares of the stock in a transaction dated Tuesday, January 21st. The shares were sold at an average price of $43.19, for a total transaction of $1,036,560.00. Following the completion of the transaction, the insider now directly owns 7,014,890 shares in the company, valued at approximately $302,973,099.10. This represents a 0.34 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders have sold a total of 93,124 shares of company stock valued at $3,271,548 over the last 90 days. 27.60% of the stock is currently owned by insiders.

Hedge Funds Weigh In On Vital Farms

A number of large investors have recently made changes to their positions in VITL. CIBC Private Wealth Group LLC raised its position in shares of Vital Farms by 152.1% in the fourth quarter. CIBC Private Wealth Group LLC now owns 895 shares of the company’s stock valued at $35,000 after buying an additional 540 shares in the last quarter. US Bancorp DE raised its position in Vital Farms by 160.3% in the fourth quarter. US Bancorp DE now owns 1,416 shares of the company’s stock valued at $53,000 after purchasing an additional 872 shares during the last quarter. Frazier Financial Advisors LLC bought a new position in Vital Farms in the 4th quarter valued at approximately $59,000. Mendota Financial Group LLC bought a new position in shares of Vital Farms during the fourth quarter valued at $62,000. Finally, Principal Securities Inc. raised its position in Vital Farms by 29.4% during the 4th quarter. Principal Securities Inc. now owns 1,673 shares of the company’s stock worth $63,000 after purchasing an additional 380 shares during the last quarter. Institutional investors own 98.59% of the company’s stock.

Vital Farms Company Profile

Vital Farms, Inc, a food company, provides pasture-raised products in the United States. It offers shell eggs, butter, hard-boiled eggs, and liquid whole eggs. The company was founded in 2007 and is headquartered in Austin, Texas.