Stocks of Carrols Restaurant Group Inc. (TAST) are poised to climb above their peers

Carrols Restaurant Group Inc. (NASDAQ: TAST) stock jumped 0.57% on Friday to $7.05 against a previous-day closing price of $7.01. With 0.62 million shares changed hands, the volume of the stock remained heavier than its average volume of 0.59 million shares. The 52-week range on TAST shows that it touched its highest point at $8.05 and its lowest point at $1.31 during that stretch. It currently has a 1-year price target of $9.88. With its current market cap of 384.23 million, TAST has annualized dividend of $0.02 while the current yield stands at 0.28%. Beta for the stock currently stands at 2.33.

Price Performance and Earnings:

Stock performance is one of the indicators that investors use to determine whether they will profit from a stock. The price performance of TAST was down-trending over the past week, with a drop of -7.11%, but this was up by 31.04% over a month. Three-month performance dropped to -3.95% while six-month performance rose 39.05%. The stock gained 346.20% in the past year, while it has gained 418.38% so far this year. A look at the trailing 12-month EPS for TAST yields -0.01 with Next year EPS estimates of 0.49. For the next quarter, that number is 0.04. This implies an EPS growth rate of 167.86% for this year and 2.63% for next year.

Float and Shares Shorts:

At present, 50.90 million TAST shares are outstanding with a float of 34.40 million shares on hand for trading. On Oct 30, 2023, short shares totaled 1.27 million, which was 2.45% higher than short shares on Sep 28, 2023. In addition to Ms. Deborah M. Derby as the firm’s CEO, President & Director, Mr. Anthony E. Hull serves as its VP, CFO & Treasurer.

Institutional Ownership:

Through their ownership of 29.81% of TAST’s outstanding shares, institutional investors have minority control over the company. Other institutions hold 54.74% of TAST, in contrast to 27.90% held by mutual funds. Shares owned by individuals account for 20.16%. As the largest shareholder in TAST with 4.66% of the stake, BlackRock Fund Advisors holds 2,541,518 shares worth 2,541,518. A second-largest stockholder of TAST, Dimensional Fund Advisors LP, holds 2,018,406 shares, controlling over 3.70% of the firm’s shares. The Vanguard Group, Inc. is the third largest shareholder in TAST, holding 1,618,239 shares or 2.97% stake. With a 1.74% stake in TAST, the Vanguard Total Stock Market ETF is the largest stakeholder. A total of 945,470 shares are owned by the mutual fund manager. The iShares Russell 2000 ETF, which owns about 1.60% of TAST stock, is the second-largest Mutual Fund holder. It holds 870,594 shares valued at 5.01 million. Royce Small-Cap Opportunity Fund holds 1.44% of the stake in TAST, owning 781,868 shares worth 4.5 million.

Analysts Ratings:

Reading analyst opinions is an effective way to decide where to invest, and there are several opinions available for TAST since 0 analysts follow the stock currently. In the same way, a target price assigned to a stock can also reveal much about its potential. With TAST analysts setting a high price target of $11.50 and a low target of $9.00, the average target price over the next 12 months is $10.13. Based on these targets, TAST could surge 63.12% to reach the target high and rise by 27.66% to reach the target low. Reaching the average price target will result in a growth of 43.69% from current levels.

Summary of Insider Activity:

Insiders traded TAST stock several times over the past three months with 0 Buys and 3 Sells. In these transactions, 0 shares were bought while 412,060 shares were sold. The number of buy transactions has increased to 17 while that of sell transactions has risen to 22 over the past year. The total number of shares bought during that period was 1,167,042 while 555,388 shares were sold.