Denny's Co. (NASDAQ:DENN) Sees Large Decrease in Short Interest

Denny's Co. (NASDAQ:DENN - Get Free Report) saw a large drop in short interest during the month of March. As of March 31st, there was short interest totalling 2,230,000 shares, a drop of 6.7% from the March 15th total of 2,390,000 shares. Approximately 4.5% of the shares of the stock are sold short. Based on an average daily volume of 488,600 shares, the short-interest ratio is presently 4.6 days.

Insider Activity

In other news, Director John C. Miller sold 35,359 shares of Denny's stock in a transaction on Monday, February 26th. The stock was sold at an average price of $9.25, for a total value of $327,070.75. Following the transaction, the director now owns 740,626 shares in the company, valued at approximately $6,850,790.50. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which is available at the SEC website. Corporate insiders own 4.20% of the company's stock.

Institutional Inflows and Outflows

A number of hedge funds and other institutional investors have recently made changes to their positions in DENN. Advisor Group Holdings Inc. lifted its stake in shares of Denny's by 11.3% in the 1st quarter. Advisor Group Holdings Inc. now owns 22,616 shares of the restaurant operator's stock valued at $323,000 after purchasing an additional 2,305 shares during the period. Rice Hall James & Associates LLC raised its stake in shares of Denny's by 3.3% in the first quarter. Rice Hall James & Associates LLC now owns 76,912 shares of the restaurant operator's stock worth $1,101,000 after purchasing an additional 2,485 shares during the last quarter. MetLife Investment Management LLC raised its stake in shares of Denny's by 50.0% in the first quarter. MetLife Investment Management LLC now owns 32,473 shares of the restaurant operator's stock worth $465,000 after purchasing an additional 10,823 shares during the last quarter. Dimensional Fund Advisors LP raised its stake in shares of Denny's by 8.7% in the first quarter. Dimensional Fund Advisors LP now owns 1,178,502 shares of the restaurant operator's stock worth $16,864,000 after purchasing an additional 94,513 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Vanguard Group Inc. raised its stake in shares of Denny's by 0.8% in the first quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 3,186,493 shares of the restaurant operator's stock worth $45,599,000 after purchasing an additional 26,750 shares during the last quarter. 85.07% of the stock is owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

A number of equities research analysts recently weighed in on DENN shares. Truist Financial reduced their price objective on Denny's from $13.00 to $12.00 and set a "buy" rating on the stock in a research report on Wednesday, February 14th. StockNews.com upgraded Denny's from a "hold" rating to a "buy" rating in a research report on Wednesday, April 10th. Oppenheimer reduced their price objective on Denny's from $13.00 to $12.00 and set an "outperform" rating on the stock in a research report on Wednesday, February 14th. Finally, Wedbush reduced their price objective on Denny's from $11.00 to $10.50 and set a "neutral" rating on the stock in a research report on Wednesday, February 14th. Three equities research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and four have assigned a buy rating to the company's stock. Based on data from MarketBeat, Denny's currently has an average rating of "Moderate Buy" and an average target price of $11.92.

Denny's Stock Down 0.6 %

Shares of NASDAQ DENN traded down $0.05 during trading on Tuesday, reaching $8.25. The company had a trading volume of 379,886 shares, compared to its average volume of 493,045. The company's fifty day moving average price is $9.08 and its 200-day moving average price is $9.54. Denny's has a 12 month low of $8.11 and a 12 month high of $12.53. The stock has a market cap of $438.08 million, a P/E ratio of 23.57, a PEG ratio of 1.46 and a beta of 1.93.

Denny's (NASDAQ:DENN - Get Free Report) last released its quarterly earnings results on Tuesday, February 13th. The restaurant operator reported $0.14 EPS for the quarter, missing analysts' consensus estimates of $0.17 by ($0.03). Denny's had a net margin of 4.30% and a negative return on equity of 70.78%. The company had revenue of $115.40 million during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $115.67 million. During the same quarter last year, the firm posted $0.18 EPS. The company's quarterly revenue was down 4.5% on a year-over-year basis. As a group, equities analysts predict that Denny's will post 0.64 earnings per share for the current year.

About Denny's

Denny's Corporation, through its subsidiaries, owns and operates franchised full-service restaurant chains under the Denny's and Keke's Breakfast Cafe brands in the United States and internationally. The company was formerly known as Advantica Restaurant Group, Inc and changed its name to Denny's Corporation in July 2002.