Business First Bancshares Stock Buy Hold or Sell Recommendation

BFST Stock  USD 28.72  0.12  0.42%   
Given the investment horizon of 90 days and your conservative risk appetite, our recommendation regarding Business First Bancshares is 'Strong Sell'. A buy or sell recommendation provided by Macroaxis is an automated directive regarding whether to purchase or sell Business First Bancshares given historical horizon and risk tolerance towards Business First. When Macroaxis issues a 'buy' or 'sell' recommendation for Business First Bancshares, the advice is generated through an automated system that utilizes algorithms and statistical models.
  
Check out Business First Analyst Recommendation to compare Macroaxis Buy or Sell Recommendation with the current analyst consensus. To check ratings for multiple equity instruments, please use the Instant Ratings tool.
Note, we conduct extensive research on individual companies such as Business and provide practical buy, sell, or hold advice based on investors' constraints. Business First Bancshares. Also, note that the market value of any company could be closely tied with the direction of predictive economic indicators such as signals in state.

Execute Business First Buy or Sell Advice

The Business recommendation should be used to complement the buy-or-sell advice compiled from the current analysts' consensus on Business First Bancshares. Macroaxis does not own or have any residual interests in Business First Bancshares or other equities on which the buy-or-sell advice is provided. Please provide your input below to execute Business First's advice using the current market data and latest reported fundamentals.

Time Horizon

Risk Tolerance

Execute Advice
Sell Business FirstBuy Business First
Strong Sell

Market Performance

OKDetails

Volatility

Not too volatileDetails

Hype Condition

StaleDetails

Current Valuation

OvervaluedDetails

Odds Of Distress

LowDetails

Economic Sensitivity

Moves indifferently to market movesDetails

Investor Sentiment

AlarmedDetails

Analyst Consensus

Strong BuyDetails

Financial Leverage

Not RatedDetails

Reporting Quality (M-Score)

UnavailableDetails
For the selected time horizon Business First Bancshares has a Mean Deviation of 1.6, Semi Deviation of 1.74, Standard Deviation of 2.44, Variance of 5.94, Downside Variance of 3.65 and Semi Variance of 3.01
Our investment recommendation module complements current analysts and expert consensus on Business First. It analyzes the firm potential to grow using all fundamental, technical, and market related data available at the time. To make sure Business First is not overpriced, please confirm all Business First Bancshares fundamentals, including its price to sales, cash flow from operations, net asset, as well as the relationship between the cash and equivalents and beta . Given that Business First Bancshares has a number of shares shorted of 216.16 K, we suggest you to validate Business First Bancshares market performance and probability of bankruptcy to ensure the company can sustain itself in the current economic cycle given your prevailing risk tolerance and investing horizon.

Business First Trading Alerts and Improvement Suggestions

Business First Returns Distribution Density

The distribution of Business First's historical returns is an attempt to chart the uncertainty of Business First's future price movements. The chart of the probability distribution of Business First daily returns describes the distribution of returns around its average expected value. We use Business First Bancshares price's Value At Risk and its Upside Potential as a relative measure of the distribution. The graph of the distribution of Business First returns is essential to provide solid investment advice for Business First.
Mean Return
0.30
Value At Risk
-3.48
Potential Upside
3.11
Standard Deviation
2.44
   Return Density   
       Distribution  
Investment risk management requires an estimate of the probability of extreme price changes. Therefore, the correct representation of the distribution of Business First historical returns presented in an easy-to-digest graphical form helps investors and money managers understand the risk-reward trade-off of different investement strategies.

Business Stock Institutional Investors

The Business First's institutional investors refer to entities that pool money to purchase Business First's securities or originate loans. These institutional investors include commercial and private banks, credit unions, insurance companies, pension funds, hedge funds, endowments, and mutual funds.
Shares
Mendon Capital Advisors Corp2024-06-30
370 K
Curi Rmb Capital2024-09-30
296.5 K
Kennedy Capital Management Inc2024-09-30
211.8 K
Northern Trust Corp2024-09-30
210.9 K
Charles Schwab Investment Management Inc2024-09-30
196.2 K
Acadian Asset Management Llc2024-06-30
194.7 K
Alliancebernstein L.p.2024-06-30
193.6 K
Franklin Resources Inc2024-09-30
171.1 K
Morgan Stanley - Brokerage Accounts2024-06-30
167.7 K
Blackrock Inc2024-06-30
2.1 M
Vanguard Group Inc2024-09-30
1.4 M
Note, although Business First's institutional investors appear to be way more sophisticated than retail investors, it remains unclear if professional active investment managers can reliably enhance risk-adjusted returns by an amount that exceeds fees and expenses.

Business First Cash Flow Accounts

201920202021202220232024 (projected)
Change In Cash(6.7M)59.8M(80.8M)84.4M73.4M77.0M
Free Cash Flow20.5M26.4M52.5M61.8M80.8M84.8M
Depreciation1.6M3.2M4.2M4.8M4.7M2.4M
Other Non Cash Items(863K)5.5M(4.5M)5.2M(3.5M)(3.3M)
Capital Expenditures4.0M3.0M4.0M7.8M11.6M12.2M
Net Income23.8M30.0M52.1M54.3M71.0M74.6M
End Period Cash Flow89.4M149.1M68.4M152.7M226.1M237.4M
Investments(213.2M)(665.2M)(743.1M)(945.4M)(660.2M)(627.2M)
Net Borrowings55.8M(49.2M)38.8M15.1M17.4M11.3M
Dividends Paid5.1M7.5M9.4M12.2M(18.1M)(17.2M)
Change To Netincome3.2M10.1M(946K)9.5M10.9M11.4M
Change Receivables198K(10.6M)4.3M(3.5M)(3.1M)(3.0M)

Business First Greeks

Most traded equities are subject to two types of risk - systematic (i.e., market) and unsystematic (i.e., nonmarket or company-specific) risk. Unsystematic risk is the risk that events specific to Business First or Banks sector will adversely affect the stock's price. This type of risk can be diversified away by owning several different stocks in different industries whose stock prices have shown a small correlation to each other. On the other hand, systematic risk is the risk that Business First's price will be affected by overall stock market movements and cannot be diversified away. So, no matter how many positions you have, you cannot eliminate market risk. However, you can measure a Business stock's historical response to market movements and buy it if you are comfortable with its volatility direction. Beta and standard deviation are two commonly used measures to help you make the right decision.
α
Alpha over Dow Jones
0.05
β
Beta against Dow Jones2.13
σ
Overall volatility
2.49
Ir
Information ratio 0.07

Business First Volatility Alert

Business First Bancshares has relatively low volatility with skewness of 2.09 and kurtosis of 11.75. Understanding different market volatility trends often help investors to time the market. Properly using volatility indicators enable traders to measure Business First's stock risk against market volatility during both bullish and bearish trends. The higher level of volatility that comes with bear markets can directly impact Business First's stock price while adding stress to investors as they watch their shares' value plummet. This usually forces investors to rebalance their portfolios by buying different financial instruments as prices fall.

Business First Fundamentals Vs Peers

Comparing Business First's fundamentals to the average values of its peers is one of the most widely used and accepted methods of equity analyses. It helps to analyze Business First's direct or indirect competition across all of the common fundamentals between Business First and the related equities. This way, we can detect undervalued stocks with similar characteristics as Business First or determine the stocks which would be an excellent addition to an existing portfolio. Peer analysis of Business First's fundamental indicators could also be used in its relative valuation, which is a method of valuing Business First by comparing valuation metrics with those of similar companies.
    
 Better Than Average     
    
 Worse Than Average Compare Business First to competition
FundamentalsBusiness FirstPeer Average
Return On Equity0.0989-0.31
Return On Asset0.0096-0.14
Profit Margin0.26 %(1.27) %
Operating Margin0.35 %(5.51) %
Current Valuation1.02 B16.62 B
Shares Outstanding29.54 M571.82 M
Shares Owned By Insiders5.25 %10.09 %
Shares Owned By Institutions44.21 %39.21 %
Number Of Shares Shorted216.16 K4.71 M
Price To Earning10.67 X28.72 X
Price To Book1.35 X9.51 X
Price To Sales3.40 X11.42 X
Revenue245.83 M9.43 B
Gross Profit218 M27.38 B
EBITDA95.26 M3.9 B
Net Income71.04 M570.98 M
Cash And Equivalents163.81 M2.7 B
Cash Per Share6.53 X5.01 X
Total Debt616.19 M5.32 B
Debt To Equity7.39 %48.70 %
Book Value Per Share24.59 X1.93 K
Cash Flow From Operations92.43 M971.22 M
Short Ratio2.22 X4.00 X
Earnings Per Share2.32 X3.12 X
Target Price32.38
Number Of Employees75118.84 K
Beta0.97-0.15
Market Capitalization848.43 M19.03 B
Total Asset6.58 B29.47 B
Retained Earnings216.12 M9.33 B
Annual Yield0.02 %
Net Asset6.58 B
Last Dividend Paid0.56
Note: Acquisition by Norman Vascocu of 1789 shares of Business First at 27.95 subject to Rule 16b-3 [view details]

Business First Market Momentum

Traders often use several daily momentume indicators to supplement a more traditional technical analysis when analyzing securities such as Business . With many different options, investors must choose the best indicators for them and familiarize themselves with how they work. We suggest combining traditional momentum indicators with more near-term forms of technical analysis such as Accumulation Distribution or Daily Balance Of Power. With their quantitative nature, daily value technical indicators can also be incorporated into your automated trading systems.

About Business First Buy or Sell Advice

When is the right time to buy or sell Business First Bancshares? Buying financial instruments such as Business Stock isn't very hard. However, what challenging for most investors is doing it at the right time to beat the market. Proper market timing is something most people cannot do without sophisticated tools, which help to isolate the right opportunities. Macroaxis provides hands-on modules to deliver winning trades and diversify your portfolios on a daily basis. Most of our advising modules are very easy to use and apply.
Please read more on our stock advisor page.

Use Investing Ideas to Build Portfolios

In addition to having Business First in your portfolios, you can quickly add positions using our predefined set of ideas and optimize them against your very unique investing style. A single investing idea is a collection of funds, stocks, ETFs, or cryptocurrencies that are programmatically selected from a pull of investment themes. After you determine your investment opportunity, you can then find an optimal portfolio that will maximize potential returns on the chosen idea or minimize its exposure to market volatility.

Did You Try This Idea?

Run Driverless Cars Thematic Idea Now

Driverless Cars
Driverless Cars Theme
It encompasses large technology companies, automotive makers, security firms, and thematic ETFs across multiple industries. These entities are directly or indirectly involved in shaping the development and marketing of self-driving vehicles. The Driverless Cars theme has 36 constituents at this time.
You can either use a buy-and-hold strategy to lock in the entire theme or actively trade it to take advantage of the short-term price volatility of individual constituents. Macroaxis can help you discover thousands of investment opportunities in different asset classes. In addition, you can partner with us for reliable portfolio optimization as you plan to utilize Driverless Cars Theme or any other thematic opportunities.
View All  Next Launch

Additional Tools for Business Stock Analysis

When running Business First's price analysis, check to measure Business First's market volatility, profitability, liquidity, solvency, efficiency, growth potential, financial leverage, and other vital indicators. We have many different tools that can be utilized to determine how healthy Business First is operating at the current time. Most of Business First's value examination focuses on studying past and present price action to predict the probability of Business First's future price movements. You can analyze the entity against its peers and the financial market as a whole to determine factors that move Business First's price. Additionally, you may evaluate how the addition of Business First to your portfolios can decrease your overall portfolio volatility.