Jefferies Financial Group Inc. (NYSE:JEF) Receives $58.14 Average Price Target from Analysts

Jefferies Financial Group Inc. (NYSE:JEF) has been given an average recommendation of “Hold” by the seven brokerages that are presently covering the company, MarketBeat.com reports. One investment analyst has rated the stock with a sell recommendation, three have issued a hold recommendation and three have assigned a buy recommendation to the company. The average twelve-month price target among brokers that have issued ratings on the stock in the last year is $58.1429.

Several research firms have commented on JEF. BMO Capital Markets lowered their target price on shares of Jefferies Financial Group from $68.00 to $42.00 and set a “market perform” rating on the stock in a research report on Monday, March 23rd. UBS Group lowered their target price on shares of Jefferies Financial Group from $76.00 to $59.00 and set a “buy” rating on the stock in a research report on Thursday, March 12th. Oppenheimer lowered their target price on shares of Jefferies Financial Group from $97.00 to $74.00 and set an “outperform” rating on the stock in a research report on Friday, March 13th. The Goldman Sachs Group increased their target price on shares of Jefferies Financial Group from $47.00 to $54.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a research report on Tuesday, April 14th. Finally, Zacks Research raised shares of Jefferies Financial Group from a “strong sell” rating to a “hold” rating in a research report on Thursday, April 9th.

Institutional Investors Weigh In On Jefferies Financial Group

A number of hedge funds have recently bought and sold shares of JEF. Bison Wealth LLC bought a new stake in shares of Jefferies Financial Group in the fourth quarter valued at about $224,000. Arrowstreet Capital Limited Partnership bought a new stake in shares of Jefferies Financial Group in the second quarter valued at about $3,325,000. EverSource Wealth Advisors LLC lifted its stake in shares of Jefferies Financial Group by 159.3% in the second quarter. EverSource Wealth Advisors LLC now owns 892 shares of the financial services provider’s stock valued at $49,000 after buying an additional 548 shares during the period. Amundi lifted its stake in shares of Jefferies Financial Group by 8.6% in the second quarter. Amundi now owns 226,025 shares of the financial services provider’s stock valued at $12,798,000 after buying an additional 17,935 shares during the period. Finally, NewEdge Advisors LLC lifted its stake in shares of Jefferies Financial Group by 11.8% in the second quarter. NewEdge Advisors LLC now owns 25,970 shares of the financial services provider’s stock valued at $1,420,000 after buying an additional 2,751 shares during the period. 60.88% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors.

Jefferies Financial Group Trading Down 0.8%

NYSE JEF opened at $52.02 on Friday. The company has a current ratio of 1.04, a quick ratio of 1.04 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.87. The company has a market capitalization of $10.63 billion, a PE ratio of 17.57 and a beta of 1.53. Jefferies Financial Group has a 1-year low of $35.53 and a 1-year high of $71.04. The firm’s fifty day simple moving average is $45.52 and its 200-day simple moving average is $53.07.

Jefferies Financial Group (NYSE:JEF) last posted its earnings results on Wednesday, March 25th. The financial services provider reported $0.70 EPS for the quarter, missing the consensus estimate of $0.89 by ($0.19). The business had revenue of $2.02 billion for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $2.02 billion. Jefferies Financial Group had a return on equity of 7.83% and a net margin of 6.61%.The company’s quarterly revenue was up 26.6% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same period in the previous year, the company earned $0.57 earnings per share. As a group, sell-side analysts anticipate that Jefferies Financial Group will post 3.79 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Jefferies Financial Group Dividend Announcement

The company also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Friday, May 29th. Shareholders of record on Monday, May 18th will be issued a dividend of $0.40 per share. This represents a $1.60 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 3.1%. The ex-dividend date is Monday, May 18th. Jefferies Financial Group’s dividend payout ratio is 54.05%.

About Jefferies Financial Group

Jefferies Financial Group Inc is a diversified financial services company that provides a range of investment banking, capital markets and asset management services to corporations, governments and institutional investors worldwide. Through its core platform, Jefferies offers advisory services for mergers and acquisitions, debt and equity underwriting, restructuring and recapitalization. The firm also operates a global sales and trading business covering equities, fixed income and foreign exchange products, complemented by equity research and macroeconomic analysis.

In addition to its capital markets franchise, Jefferies maintains a growing asset management division that delivers customized investment solutions across public and private markets.