BBVA Banco Frances (NYSE:BBAR) Upgraded to Hold at Zacks Research

Zacks Research upgraded shares of BBVA Banco Frances (NYSE:BBAR) from a strong sell rating to a hold rating in a report published on Monday,Zacks.com reports.

A number of other research firms also recently weighed in on BBAR. Weiss Ratings restated a “hold (c)” rating on shares of BBVA Banco Frances in a report on Wednesday, October 8th. Itau BBA Securities upgraded shares of BBVA Banco Frances from a “market perform” rating to an “outperform” rating in a report on Monday, October 27th. Citigroup upgraded shares of BBVA Banco Frances from a “neutral” rating to a “buy” rating in a report on Monday. HSBC upgraded shares of BBVA Banco Frances from a “hold” rating to a “buy” rating and reduced their target price for the stock from $21.00 to $17.00 in a report on Wednesday, October 1st. Finally, Wall Street Zen raised shares of BBVA Banco Frances from a “sell” rating to a “hold” rating in a research note on Sunday, September 7th. One analyst has rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, four have assigned a Buy rating and two have issued a Hold rating to the company’s stock. Based on data from MarketBeat, the stock has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $20.67.

BBVA Banco Frances Stock Performance

Shares of NYSE BBAR opened at $16.83 on Monday. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.27, a quick ratio of 1.11 and a current ratio of 1.11. The company has a market cap of $3.44 billion, a P/E ratio of 12.56 and a beta of 1.13. The firm’s fifty day moving average is $10.58 and its two-hundred day moving average is $15.21. BBVA Banco Frances has a 52-week low of $7.76 and a 52-week high of $25.01.

BBVA Banco Frances (NYSE:BBAR) last announced its quarterly earnings results on Wednesday, August 20th. The bank reported $0.24 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, missing analysts’ consensus estimates of $0.37 by ($0.13). The company had revenue of $524.41 million during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $727.31 billion. BBVA Banco Frances had a net margin of 6.65% and a return on equity of 10.24%. As a group, analysts anticipate that BBVA Banco Frances will post 1.94 EPS for the current fiscal year.

BBVA Banco Frances Cuts Dividend

The business also recently disclosed a monthly dividend, which was paid on Monday, October 27th. Shareholders of record on Monday, October 20th were given a $0.0311 dividend. This represents a c) annualized dividend and a yield of 2.2%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Monday, October 20th. BBVA Banco Frances’s payout ratio is 21.64%.

Institutional Investors Weigh In On BBVA Banco Frances

Large investors have recently added to or reduced their stakes in the stock. Banco BTG Pactual S.A. purchased a new stake in BBVA Banco Frances in the 1st quarter valued at about $362,000. Walleye Capital LLC purchased a new stake in BBVA Banco Frances in the 1st quarter valued at about $637,000. PointState Capital LP boosted its position in BBVA Banco Frances by 36.1% in the 1st quarter. PointState Capital LP now owns 3,346,539 shares of the bank’s stock valued at $60,639,000 after buying an additional 888,235 shares during the period. MIRAE ASSET GLOBAL ETFS HOLDINGS Ltd. boosted its position in BBVA Banco Frances by 6.2% in the 1st quarter. MIRAE ASSET GLOBAL ETFS HOLDINGS Ltd. now owns 1,841,384 shares of the bank’s stock valued at $33,366,000 after buying an additional 107,599 shares during the period. Finally, Candriam S.C.A. purchased a new stake in BBVA Banco Frances in the 1st quarter valued at about $1,214,000.

About BBVA Banco Frances

Banco BBVA Argentina SA provides various banking products and services to individuals and companies in Argentina. The company provides retail banking products and services, such as checking and savings accounts, time deposits, credit cards financing, consumer and pledge loans, mortgages, insurance, and investment products to individuals; and small and medium-sized companies products and services, including financing products, factoring, checking accounts, time deposits, transactional and payroll services, insurance, and investment products to private-sector companies.