Chipotle Mexican Grill Inc. (NYSE: CMG) is scheduled to report its third-quarter financial results after the markets close on Tuesday. The consensus estimates from Thomson Reuters call for $4.63 in earnings per share (EPS) on $1.22 billion in revenue. In the same period of the previous year, it posted EPS of $4.15 and $1.08 billion in revenue.
This company continues to astound shareholders and short sellers alike. Chipotle has more than 1,500 restaurants worldwide and is planning on opening up to 195 new restaurants this year. Like many companies, Chipotle also has spoken favorably of the idea of increasing its stock buyback program, which speaks to the company’s confidence in the growth of its business.
Chipotle has revealed that it is testing a new tortilla with super-simple ingredients in the company’s ongoing effort to remain the burrito leader. The idea is to craft a tortilla that mixes old-school simplicity with new-school mass marketing. The main impetus behind the move is getting all preservative and additives out of the tortilla, a nod to the pledge the company took to go GMO free.
Over the course of 2015, Chipotle had been missing a key component of its burritos and bowls for a fair amount of 2015, but now it is back on the menu. In late September, the company announced that it had restored most of its pork supply and is again serving carnitas in 90% of its restaurants. Chipotle expects to have carnitas back in all its restaurants by the end of November.
The burrito giant stopped serving carnitas at over a third of its restaurants earlier this year after one of its primary pork suppliers failed to meet routine auditing standards under the company’s pork protocol. This goes along with Chipotle’s environmental mission for naturally raised animals and GMOs.
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Ahead of its earnings a few analysts weighed in on Chipotle:
- Wedbush reiterated a Neutral rating with a $740 price target.
- RBC Capital reiterated an Outperform rating and raised its price target to $825 from $740.
- SunTrust initiated coverage with a Buy rating and an $850 price target.
So far in 2015, Chipotle stock is up 5% year to date, while over the past 52 weeks, shares are up 12%.
Shares of Chipotle were down less than 1% at $712.05 Tuesday afternoon, with a consensus analyst price target of $775.57 and a 52-week trading range of $597.33 to $758.61.
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