Rick D. Day Purchases 1,800 Shares of Business First Bancshares, Inc. (NASDAQ:BFST) Stock

Business First Bancshares, Inc. (NASDAQ:BFST) Director Rick D. Day purchased 1,800 shares of Business First Bancshares stock in a transaction that occurred on Tuesday, April 30th. The stock was purchased at an average price of $20.30 per share, with a total value of $36,540.00. Following the completion of the purchase, the director now directly owns 262,785 shares in the company, valued at $5,334,535.50. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which is available through the SEC website.

Business First Bancshares Stock Up 0.5 %

Shares of NASDAQ BFST opened at $21.00 on Friday. Business First Bancshares, Inc. has a 52 week low of $13.05 and a 52 week high of $25.57. The stock’s fifty day moving average is $21.45 and its 200 day moving average is $21.70. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.08, a quick ratio of 1.01 and a current ratio of 1.01. The stock has a market capitalization of $536.34 million, a P/E ratio of 8.27 and a beta of 0.95.

Business First Bancshares Announces Dividend

The company also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Friday, May 31st. Stockholders of record on Wednesday, May 15th will be given a $0.14 dividend. This represents a $0.56 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 2.67%. The ex-dividend date is Tuesday, May 14th. Business First Bancshares’s payout ratio is presently 22.05%.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

A number of equities research analysts have recently weighed in on BFST shares. Raymond James downgraded Business First Bancshares from an “outperform” rating to a “market perform” rating in a report on Friday, January 5th. Piper Sandler boosted their price objective on shares of Business First Bancshares from $23.00 to $26.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a report on Wednesday, January 24th. Finally, DA Davidson reaffirmed a “buy” rating on shares of Business First Bancshares in a report on Monday, January 15th. One investment analyst has rated the stock with a hold rating and three have assigned a buy rating to the stock. According to data from MarketBeat.com, Business First Bancshares currently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus price target of $23.33.

Institutional Trading of Business First Bancshares

Several large investors have recently made changes to their positions in BFST. KG&L Capital Management LLC bought a new stake in Business First Bancshares during the fourth quarter worth $218,000. Kennedy Capital Management LLC lifted its position in shares of Business First Bancshares by 25.1% during the 3rd quarter. Kennedy Capital Management LLC now owns 295,969 shares of the company’s stock worth $5,552,000 after buying an additional 59,297 shares during the last quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. boosted its stake in Business First Bancshares by 1.3% in the third quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 1,276,408 shares of the company’s stock valued at $23,945,000 after buying an additional 16,094 shares in the last quarter. ClariVest Asset Management LLC bought a new position in Business First Bancshares in the third quarter valued at about $743,000. Finally, Swiss National Bank raised its stake in Business First Bancshares by 3.1% during the third quarter. Swiss National Bank now owns 53,008 shares of the company’s stock worth $994,000 after acquiring an additional 1,600 shares in the last quarter. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 47.35% of the company’s stock.

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.