GAP (NYSE:GAP) Stock Price Up 5.4% – Here’s What Happened

The Gap, Inc. (NYSE:GAP)’s share price was up 5.4% during mid-day trading on Tuesday . The stock traded as high as $24.81 and last traded at $24.72. Approximately 861,280 shares traded hands during trading, a decline of 78% from the average daily volume of 3,989,690 shares. The stock had previously closed at $23.46.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

GAP has been the subject of a number of research reports. Guggenheim reaffirmed a “buy” rating and issued a $35.00 target price on shares of GAP in a report on Friday, November 22nd. Evercore ISI increased their price objective on GAP from $32.00 to $33.00 and gave the stock an “outperform” rating in a research report on Friday, November 22nd. Telsey Advisory Group restated a “market perform” rating and set a $26.00 price target on shares of GAP in a research note on Monday, November 18th. UBS Group upgraded shares of GAP from a “sell” rating to a “neutral” rating and lifted their price objective for the company from $16.00 to $26.00 in a research report on Friday, January 10th. Finally, Barclays boosted their price objective on shares of GAP from $31.00 to $32.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a research note on Friday, November 22nd. Four research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and seven have assigned a buy rating to the stock. According to MarketBeat, the company has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $29.27.

GAP Stock Performance

The company has a market cap of $9.34 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 11.46, a PEG ratio of 1.11 and a beta of 2.36. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.47, a quick ratio of 0.84 and a current ratio of 1.54. The company’s fifty day moving average price is $23.95.

GAP (NYSE:GAP) last released its quarterly earnings results on Thursday, November 21st. The company reported $0.72 earnings per share for the quarter, topping analysts’ consensus estimates of $0.56 by $0.16. The company had revenue of $3.83 billion during the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $3.81 billion. GAP had a return on equity of 29.03% and a net margin of 5.40%. The business’s revenue for the quarter was up 1.6% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same period in the previous year, the firm posted $0.59 earnings per share. Sell-side analysts forecast that The Gap, Inc. will post 2.02 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

GAP Announces Dividend

The business also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Wednesday, January 29th. Stockholders of record on Wednesday, January 8th will be paid a dividend of $0.15 per share. This represents a $0.60 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 2.42%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Wednesday, January 8th. GAP’s dividend payout ratio is currently 27.78%.

Insider Buying and Selling

In related news, major shareholder John J. Fisher sold 250,000 shares of the stock in a transaction that occurred on Friday, December 13th. The shares were sold at an average price of $24.18, for a total transaction of $6,045,000.00. Following the completion of the sale, the insider now owns 1,000,752 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $24,198,183.36. This represents a 19.99 % decrease in their position. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which can be accessed through the SEC website. Also, CFO Katrina O’connell sold 87,557 shares of GAP stock in a transaction that occurred on Tuesday, December 3rd. The shares were sold at an average price of $25.45, for a total transaction of $2,228,325.65. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Over the last three months, insiders have sold 955,375 shares of company stock valued at $24,316,219. Insiders own 31.00% of the company’s stock.

GAP Company Profile

Gap, Inc operates as a global apparel retail company, which offers clothing, apparel, accessories, and personal care products for men, women, and children. The firm operates through the following segments: Gap Global, Old Navy Global, Banana Republic Global, Athleta, and Other. The Gap Global segment includes apparel and accessories for men and women under the Gap brand, along with the GapKids, BabyGap, GapMaternity, GapBody, and GapFit collections.