Kforce Inc. (NASDAQ:KFRC) Receives Consensus Rating of “Moderate Buy” from Brokerages

Shares of Kforce Inc. (NASDAQ:KFRC) have been given a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” by the four research firms that are covering the company, Marketbeat.com reports. Two investment analysts have rated the stock with a hold recommendation and two have issued a buy recommendation on the company. The average 1-year price target among brokers that have issued ratings on the stock in the last year is $68.75.

A number of equities analysts have recently weighed in on KFRC shares. StockNews.com raised Kforce from a “hold” rating to a “buy” rating in a research report on Thursday, August 1st. Sidoti raised Kforce from a “neutral” rating to a “buy” rating and set a $71.00 target price on the stock in a research report on Tuesday, October 15th.

Hedge Funds Weigh In On Kforce

Several large investors have recently bought and sold shares of the stock. Blue Trust Inc. lifted its stake in Kforce by 59.9% during the 2nd quarter. Blue Trust Inc. now owns 427 shares of the business services provider’s stock valued at $27,000 after acquiring an additional 160 shares in the last quarter. Azzad Asset Management Inc. ADV raised its stake in shares of Kforce by 1.5% during 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 during the period. ProShare Advisors LLC raised its stake in shares of Kforce by 6.6% during 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 during the period. SummerHaven Investment Management LLC raised its stake in shares of Kforce by 2.1% during 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 during the period. Finally, Access Investment Management LLC raised its stake in shares of Kforce by 0.8% during 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 during the period. 92.77% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors.

Kforce Price Performance

Kforce stock opened at $55.58 on Tuesday. The stock has a market capitalization of $1.08 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 19.23 and a beta of 0.87. Kforce has a 52-week low of $55.15 and a 52-week high of $74.79. The stock’s 50 day moving average price is $61.63 and its two-hundred day moving average price is $62.99. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.22, a quick ratio of 2.33 and a current ratio of 2.33.

Kforce (NASDAQ:KFRC) last issued its earnings results on Monday, July 29th. The business services provider reported $0.75 earnings per share for the quarter, topping analysts’ consensus estimates of $0.73 by $0.02. Kforce had a return on equity of 34.89% and a net margin of 3.56%. The company had revenue of $356.32 million for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $356.20 million. During the same period in the prior year, the firm earned $0.95 earnings per share. Kforce’s revenue for the quarter was down 8.4% on a year-over-year basis. On average, equities analysts predict that Kforce will post 2.7 earnings per share 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 paid a dividend of $0.38 per share. This represents a $1.52 annualized dividend and a yield of 2.73%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Friday, September 13th. Kforce’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is presently 52.60%.

About Kforce

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.