Morgan Stanley Cuts Citizens Financial Group (NYSE:CFG) Price Target to $89.00

Citizens Financial Group (NYSE:CFG) had its price target decreased by Morgan Stanley from $90.00 to $89.00 in a report released on Monday morning, MarketBeat Ratings reports. Morgan Stanley currently has an overweight rating on the bank’s stock.

CFG has been the topic of several other research reports. Barclays upped their price objective on Citizens Financial Group from $77.00 to $81.00 and gave the stock an “overweight” rating in a report on Friday, July 17th. UBS Group upped their price target on Citizens Financial Group from $75.00 to $82.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a research note on Tuesday, July 7th. Evercore reiterated an “outperform” rating and issued a $80.00 price objective on shares of Citizens Financial Group in a research report on Monday, July 6th. Royal Bank Of Canada boosted their price target on shares of Citizens Financial Group from $70.00 to $79.00 and gave the stock an “outperform” rating in a research note on Friday, July 17th. Finally, Jefferies Financial Group increased their price objective on shares of Citizens Financial Group from $85.00 to $90.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a report on Thursday, July 16th. Sixteen investment analysts have rated the stock with a Buy rating and four have given a Hold rating to the company’s stock. According to data from MarketBeat.com, the stock presently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus target price of $79.60.

Citizens Financial Group Trading Down 0.0%

Shares of CFG opened at $63.87 on Monday. The stock has a fifty day moving average price of $70.11 and a two-hundred day moving average price of $66.59. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.63, a quick ratio of 0.85 and a current ratio of 0.86. Citizens Financial Group has a 52-week low of $47.96 and a 52-week high of $75.33. The company has a market cap of $26.90 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 13.85, a PEG ratio of 0.58 and a beta of 0.66.

Citizens Financial Group (NYSE:CFG) last announced its earnings results on Thursday, July 16th. The bank reported $1.30 earnings per share for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $1.25 by $0.05. The company had revenue of $2.28 billion during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $2.25 billion. Citizens Financial Group had a return on equity of 8.85% and a net margin of 17.18%.The firm’s quarterly revenue was up 12.1% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same period last year, the company posted $0.92 earnings per share. Analysts predict that Citizens Financial Group will post 5.29 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Citizens Financial Group Dividend Announcement

The firm also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Thursday, August 13th. Shareholders of record on Thursday, July 30th were issued a dividend of $0.46 per share. The ex-dividend date was Thursday, July 30th. This represents a $1.84 annualized dividend and a yield of 2.9%. Citizens Financial Group’s payout ratio is currently 39.91%.

Insider Activity

In other Citizens Financial Group news, CEO Bruce Van Saun sold 129,369 shares of the stock in a transaction dated Friday, July 24th. The stock was sold at an average price of $72.07, for a total value of $9,323,623.83. Following the completion of the sale, the chief executive officer directly owned 1,140,763 shares in the company, valued at $82,214,789.41. This represents a 10.19% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available through the SEC website. 0.67% of the stock is owned by company insiders.

Institutional Trading of Citizens Financial Group

Hedge funds have recently bought and sold shares of the stock. BlackRock Inc. bought a new stake in Citizens Financial Group in the 2nd quarter valued at $3,415,046,000. Capital International Investors raised its stake in shares of Citizens Financial Group by 32.3% in the 4th quarter. Capital International Investors now owns 8,000,750 shares of the bank’s stock valued at $467,389,000 after purchasing an additional 1,953,372 shares during the period. Norges Bank acquired a new stake in shares of Citizens Financial Group in the 4th quarter valued at about $355,909,000. Goldman Sachs Group Inc. lifted its holdings in shares of Citizens Financial Group by 15.4% in the fourth quarter. Goldman Sachs Group Inc. now owns 5,081,725 shares of the bank’s stock valued at $296,824,000 after purchasing an additional 678,601 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Dimensional Fund Advisors LP lifted its holdings in shares of Citizens Financial Group by 0.6% in the first quarter. Dimensional Fund Advisors LP now owns 4,719,160 shares of the bank’s stock valued at $282,927,000 after purchasing an additional 28,602 shares in the last quarter. 94.90% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

About Citizens Financial Group

Citizens Financial Group, Inc is a bank holding company headquartered in Providence, Rhode Island. Its principal subsidiary, Citizens Bank, provides banking and financial services to individuals, families, businesses and institutions through branches, digital channels and other delivery platforms.

The company’s consumer banking activities include checking and savings accounts, residential mortgages, home equity lending, credit cards, personal loans and other lending products. Through its commercial banking operations, Citizens provides business loans, commercial real estate financing, treasury management, capital markets services and other solutions for companies and institutional clients.