Darden Restaurants (DRI) Stock Price, News & Analysis

Company Overview

Darden Restaurants, Inc. is a full-service restaurant company that owns and operates a portfolio of dining brands in the United States. Its restaurants offer a range of cuisines and dining formats, including Italian-American, steakhouse, seafood, casual dining and polished casual concepts.

The company’s portfolio includes Olive Garden, LongHorn Steakhouse, Cheddar’s Scratch Kitchen, Yard House, Ruth’s Chris Steak House, The Capital Grille, Seasons 52, Bahama Breeze and Eddie V’s. These brands serve meals prepared for on-premises dining, as well as takeout and other off-premises occasions.

Darden traces its history to 1968, when founder William “Bill” Darden opened the first Red Lobster restaurant in Lakeland, Florida. The company became independent from General Mills in 1995 and has since expanded through the development and acquisition of restaurant brands, including its acquisition of Ruth’s Chris Steak House in 2023. Darden primarily serves customers across the United States, with select operations in Canada.

Rick Cardenas has served as Darden Restaurants’ president and chief executive officer since 2021. The company is headquartered in Orlando, Florida, and its common stock trades on the New York Stock Exchange under the symbol DRI.

Key Stats

• Today's Range: $222.23 to $229.38
• 50-Day Range: $193.72 to $222.98
• 52-Week Range: $169.00 to $229.76
• Volume: 415,230 shs
• Average Volume: 1.30 million shs
• Market Capitalization: $25.92 billion
• P/E Ratio: 22.39
• Dividend Yield: 2.83%
• Price Target: $232.82
• Consensus Rating: Moderate Buy

Darden Restaurants Stock Analysis - MarketRank™

Darden Restaurants scored higher than 72% of companies evaluated by MarketBeat, and ranked 178th out of 475 stocks in the consumer discretionary sector. Scores are calculated by averaging available category scores, with extra weight given to analysis and valuation.

Analyst's Opinion

• Score: 2.5 / 5
• Analyst Rating: Moderate Buy

Consensus Rating

Darden Restaurants has received a consensus rating of Moderate Buy. The company's average rating score is 2.64, and is based on no strong buy ratings, 16 buy ratings, 9 hold ratings, and no sell ratings.

Upside/Downside

The consensus price target for Darden Restaurants is close to its current price, suggesting limited near-term upside or downside.

Amount of Analyst Coverage

Darden Restaurants has been the subject of 14 research reports in the past 90 days, demonstrating strong analyst interest in this stock.

Earnings and Valuation

• Score: 2.5 / 5
• Proj. Earnings Growth: 10.59%

Earnings Growth

Earnings for Darden Restaurants are expected to grow by 10.59% in the coming year, from $11.24 to $12.43 per share.

Price to Earnings Ratio vs. the Market

The P/E ratio of Darden Restaurants is 22.20, which means that it is trading at a less expensive P/E ratio than the market average P/E ratio of about 27.09.

Price to Earnings Ratio vs. Sector

The P/E ratio of Darden Restaurants is 22.20, which means that it is trading at a less expensive P/E ratio than the Consumer Discretionary sector average P/E ratio of about 26.63.

Price to Earnings Growth Ratio

Darden Restaurants has a PEG Ratio of 2.09. PEG Ratios above 1 indicate that a company could be overvalued.

Price to Book Value per Share Ratio

Darden Restaurants has a P/B Ratio of 11.77. P/B Ratios above 3 indicate that a company could be overvalued with respect to its assets and liabilities.

Short Interest

• Score: 1.0 / 5
• Short Interest Level: Bearish

Percentage of Shares Shorted

6.15% of the float of Darden Restaurants has been sold short.

Short Interest Ratio / Days to Cover

Darden Restaurants has a short interest ratio ("days to cover") of 6.24.

Change versus previous month

Short interest in Darden Restaurants has recently increased by 2.40%, indicating that investor sentiment is decreasing.

Dividend

• Score: 2.5 / 5
• Dividend Strength: Moderate

Dividend Yield

Darden Restaurants pays a meaningful dividend of 2.91%, higher than the bottom 25% of all stocks that pay dividends.

Dividend Growth

Darden Restaurants has only been increasing its dividend for 4 years.

Dividend Coverage

The dividend payout ratio of Darden Restaurants is 63.34%. This payout ratio is at a healthy, sustainable level, below 75%.

Dividend Sustainability

Based on earnings estimates, Darden Restaurants will have a dividend payout ratio of 52.13% next year. This indicates that Darden Restaurants will be able to sustain or increase its dividend.

News and Social Media

• Score: 3.7 / 5
• News Sentiment: 0.93

News Sentiment

Darden Restaurants has a news sentiment score of 0.93. This score is calculated as an average of sentiment of articles about the company over the last seven days and ranges from 2 (good news) to -2 (bad news). This is a higher news sentiment than the 0.44 average news sentiment score of Consumer Discretionary companies.

News Coverage This Week

MarketBeat has tracked 10 news articles for Darden Restaurants this week, compared to 8 articles on an average week.

Search Interest

Only 20 people have searched for DRI on MarketBeat in the last 30 days. This is a decrease of -55% compared to the previous 30 days.

MarketBeat Follows

5 people have added Darden Restaurants to their MarketBeat watchlist in the last 30 days. This is an increase of 25% compared to the previous 30 days.

Company Ownership

• Score: 1.5 / 5
• Insider Trading: Selling Shares

Insider Buying vs. Insider Selling

In the past three months, Darden Restaurants insiders have sold more of their company's stock than they have bought. Specifically, they have bought $0.00 in company stock and sold $1,846,637.00 in company stock.

Percentage Held by Insiders

0.67% of the stock of Darden Restaurants is held by insiders.

Percentage Held by Institutions

93.64% of the stock of Darden Restaurants is held by institutions. High institutional ownership can be a signal of strong market trust in this company.

Company Calendar

• Last Earnings: 9/24/2026
• Record date for 11/2 Dividend: 10/09/2026
• Ex-Dividend for 11/2 Dividend: 10/09/2026
• Dividend Payable: 11/02/2026
• Today: 11/04/2026
• Next Earnings (Estimated): 12/17/2026
• Fiscal Year End: 5/31/2027

Industry, Sector and Symbol

• Stock Exchange: NYSE
• Sector: Consumer Discretionary
• Industry: Hotels, Restaurants & Leisure
• Sub-Industry: Restaurants
• Current Symbol: NYSE:DRI
• CIK: 940944
• Web: www.darden.com
• Phone: (407) 245-4000
• Fax: 407-245-4989
• Employees: 209,931
• Year Founded: 1968

Price Target and Rating

• Average Price Target for Darden Restaurants: $232.82
• High Price Target: $276.00
• Low Price Target: $200.00
• Potential Upside/Downside: +1.8%
• Consensus Rating: Moderate Buy
• Rating Score (0-4): 2.64
• Research Coverage: 25 Analysts

Profitability

• EPS (Trailing Twelve Months): $10.23
• Trailing P/E Ratio: 22.36
• Forward P/E Ratio: 18.40
• P/E Growth: 2.09
• Net Income: $1.21 billion
• Net Margins: 8.85%
• Pretax Margin: 10.20%
• Return on Equity: 58.64%
• Return on Assets: 9.56%

Debt

• Debt-to-Equity Ratio: 0.79
• Current Ratio: 0.30
• Quick Ratio: 0.20

Sales & Book Value

• Annual Sales: $13.21 billion
• Price / Sales: 1.96
• Cash Flow: $16.19 per share
• Price / Cash Flow: 14.13
• Book Value: $19.35 per share
• Price / Book: 11.82

Miscellaneous

• Outstanding Shares: 113,140,000
• Free Float: 112,385,000
• Market Cap: $25.88 billion
• Optionable: Optionable
• Beta: 0.65