Kforce (NASDAQ:KFRC) Shares Gap Up – Here’s What Happened

Kforce Inc. (NASDAQ:KFRC) shares gapped up prior to trading on Tuesday . The stock had previously closed at $56.21, but opened at $57.45. Kforce shares last traded at $58.10, with a volume of 13,992 shares trading hands.

Wall Street Analyst Weigh In

A number of analysts have recently issued reports on KFRC shares. Sidoti raised Kforce from a “neutral” rating to a “buy” rating and set a $71.00 price objective for the company in a research report on Tuesday. StockNews.com upgraded Kforce from a “hold” rating to a “buy” rating in a research note on Thursday, August 1st. Two research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and three have assigned a buy rating to the company’s stock. Based on data from MarketBeat, Kforce has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus target price of $68.75.

Kforce Price Performance

The firm has a market capitalization of $1.13 billion, a P/E ratio of 20.01 and a beta of 0.87. The company has a current ratio of 2.33, a quick ratio of 2.33 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.22. The company has a 50 day moving average of $62.00 and a 200-day moving average of $63.21.

Kforce (NASDAQ:KFRC) last announced its quarterly earnings data on Monday, July 29th. The business services provider reported $0.75 earnings per share for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $0.73 by $0.02. The firm had revenue of $356.32 million during the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $356.20 million. Kforce had a return on equity of 34.89% and a net margin of 3.56%. The company’s quarterly revenue was down 8.4% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same period in the previous year, the firm earned $0.95 EPS. On average, sell-side analysts predict that Kforce Inc. will post 2.7 EPS for the current year.

Kforce Announces Dividend

The business also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Friday, September 27th. Shareholders of record on Friday, September 13th were issued a $0.38 dividend. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Friday, September 13th. This represents a $1.52 annualized dividend and a yield of 2.63%. Kforce’s dividend payout ratio is presently 52.60%.

Hedge Funds Weigh In On Kforce

A number of institutional investors have recently modified their holdings of the business. Blue Trust Inc. raised its holdings in shares of Kforce by 59.9% during the 2nd quarter. Blue Trust Inc. now owns 427 shares of the business services provider’s stock worth $27,000 after buying an additional 160 shares in the last quarter. Azzad Asset Management Inc. ADV increased its holdings in Kforce by 1.5% in the 3rd quarter. Azzad Asset Management Inc. ADV now owns 13,189 shares of the business services provider’s stock worth $810,000 after purchasing an additional 192 shares in the last quarter. ProShare Advisors LLC increased its holdings in Kforce by 6.6% in the 1st quarter. ProShare Advisors LLC now owns 3,383 shares of the business services provider’s stock worth $239,000 after purchasing an additional 209 shares in the last quarter. SummerHaven Investment Management LLC increased its holdings in Kforce by 2.1% in the 2nd quarter. SummerHaven Investment Management LLC now owns 12,107 shares of the business services provider’s stock worth $752,000 after purchasing an additional 247 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Access Investment Management LLC increased its holdings in Kforce by 0.8% in the 2nd quarter. Access Investment Management LLC now owns 36,275 shares of the business services provider’s stock worth $2,254,000 after purchasing an additional 300 shares in the last quarter. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 92.77% of the company’s stock.

Kforce Company Profile

Kforce Inc provides professional staffing services and solutions in the United States. It operates through two segments, Technology, and Finance and Accounting (FA). The Technology segment provides talent solutions to its clients primarily in the areas of information technology, such as systems/applications architecture and development, data management and analytics, business and artificial intelligence, machine learning, project and program management, and network architecture and security.