
Barnes & Noble (BKS) Stock Initiated With 'Buy' Rating at Cantor Fitzgerald
NEW YORK (TheStreet) -- Barnes &Noble (BKS) - Get Report stock was initiated at Cantor Fitzgerald with a "buy" rating and a $19 price target.
Shares of Barnes & Noble are rallying by 3.04% to $12.88 on Thursday morning.
While the company has been impacted by the declining sales at retail bookstores in the U.S., this is no longer the case, analysts said.
Sales are "stabilizing" and it appears that the company is also benefiting from the decline in its pool of competitors, the firm noted.
Due to these shifting trends, analysts have a bullish outlook on the stock.
Based in New York, Barnes & Noble retails books, textbooks, magazines, newspapers, and other contents in the U.S.
Separately, TheStreet Ratings team rates BARNES & NOBLE INC as a Hold with a ratings score of C+. TheStreet Ratings Team has this to say about their recommendation:
We rate BARNES & NOBLE INC (BKS) a HOLD. The primary factors that have impacted our rating are mixed - some indicating strength, some showing weaknesses, with little evidence to justify the expectation of either a positive or negative performance for this stock relative to most other stocks. The company's strengths can be seen in multiple areas, such as its solid stock price performance, good cash flow from operations and notable return on equity. However, as a counter to these strengths, we also find weaknesses including unimpressive growth in net income and poor profit margins.
Highlights from the analysis by TheStreet Ratings Team goes as follows:
- Compared to its price level of one year ago, BKS is up 27.82% to its most recent closing price of 11.76. Looking ahead, our view is that this company's fundamentals should not have much impact in either direction, allowing the stock to generally move up or down based on the push and pull of the broad market.
- Net operating cash flow has significantly increased by 107.36% to $10.24 million when compared to the same quarter last year. In addition, BARNES & NOBLE INC has also vastly surpassed the industry average cash flow growth rate of -10.85%.
- BARNES & NOBLE INC's earnings per share declined by 21.4% in the most recent quarter compared to the same quarter a year ago. This company has reported somewhat volatile earnings recently. But, we feel it is poised for EPS growth in the coming year. During the past fiscal year, BARNES & NOBLE INC turned its bottom line around by earning $0.12 versus -$1.27 in the prior year. This year, the market expects an improvement in earnings ($0.45 versus $0.12).
- The gross profit margin for BARNES & NOBLE INC is currently lower than what is desirable, coming in at 28.94%. It has decreased from the same quarter the previous year. Along with this, the net profit margin of -2.86% is significantly below that of the industry average.
- The company, on the basis of change in net income from the same quarter one year ago, has underperformed when compared to that of the S&P 500 and greatly underperformed compared to the Specialty Retail industry average. The net income has decreased by 22.6% when compared to the same quarter one year ago, dropping from -$28.45 million to -$34.87 million.
- You can view the full analysis from the report here: BKS








