Business First Bancshares (NASDAQ:BFST) Releases Earnings Results, Beats Expectations By $0.17 EPS

Business First Bancshares (NASDAQ:BFST) issued its quarterly earnings results on Thursday. The company reported $0.66 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $0.49 by $0.17, Zacks reports. Business First Bancshares had a net margin of 14.92% and a return on equity of 11.57%.

Business First Bancshares Stock Performance

Shares of BFST stock remained flat at $25.44 during mid-day trading on Thursday. The stock had a trading volume of 176,472 shares, compared to its average volume of 113,405. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.75, a quick ratio of 0.99 and a current ratio of 0.99. Business First Bancshares has a 52-week low of $18.97 and a 52-week high of $30.30. The firm has a market capitalization of $751.50 million, a PE ratio of 10.97 and a beta of 1.00. The company has a 50-day moving average of $26.71 and a 200-day moving average of $25.40.

Insider Buying and Selling

In other Business First Bancshares news, Director Joseph Vernon Johnson sold 6,000 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction on Friday, November 1st. The shares were sold at an average price of $26.36, for a total transaction of $158,160.00. Following the completion of the sale, the director now directly owns 185,557 shares in the company, valued at approximately $4,891,282.52. The trade was a 3.13 % decrease in their position. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is accessible through this hyperlink. In the last ninety days, insiders sold 12,480 shares of company stock worth $329,972. 6.45% of the stock is owned by corporate insiders.

Analyst Ratings Changes

A number of analysts have recently commented on the company. Hovde Group cut Business First Bancshares from an “outperform” rating to a “market perform” rating and boosted their price target for the stock from $30.00 to $31.50 in a research report on Wednesday, November 13th. Raymond James raised Business First Bancshares from a “market perform” rating to an “outperform” rating and set a $30.00 target price on the stock in a research note on Thursday, December 19th.

About Business First Bancshares

Business First Bancshares, Inc operates as the bank holding company for b1BANK that provides various banking products and services in Louisiana and Texas. It offers various deposit products and services, including checking, demand, money market, time, and savings accounts; and certificates of deposits, remote deposit capture, and direct deposit services.