Wingstop Analyst Upgrades Amid Buyback, Sales Surge

Wingstop Inc WING recently entered into an accelerated share buyback agreement with Morgan Stanley to repurchase $125.0 million worth of common stock.

Checks suggest that the company’s same-store sales are tracking to exceed the consensus estimates for the third quarter and grow “in the 8%+ range, according to Wedbush.

The Wingstop Analyst: Nick Setyan upgraded the rating for Wingstop from Neutral to Outperform, while raising the price target from $180 to $200.

The Wingstop Thesis: Concerns around the challenging same-store sales comps in the first half of 2024 are “well understood,” Setyan said in the upgrade note.

Check out other analyst stock ratings.

“WING is uniquely positioned within the industry to deliver transaction growth outperformance over the medium- to longer-term beyond 1H:24 in any macro backdrop,” the analyst wrote. “We now believe our 2024 net unit growth expectation of 12.2% could prove conservative, even in a higher wing cost environment,” he added.

The analyst raised the earnings estimate for 2023 from $2.23 per share to $2.27 per share “to reflect our higher Q4 SSS growth estimate and the recently announced $125M accelerated repurchase authorization.”

WING Price Action: Shares of Wingstop had risen by 1.24% to $175.90 at the time of publication Wednesday.

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Posted In: Analyst ColorUpgradesPrice TargetAnalyst RatingsMoversTrading IdeasExpert IdeasNick SetyanWedbush
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