Noodles&Co. dips after Benchmark cuts price target

Investing.com -- Noodles&Company (NASDAQ: NDLS) shares were lower after Benchmark Co. lowered its price target until it sees signs of improvement in traffic.

Shares fell 6.6% on Wednesday and are down 42% since the beginning of the year.

The analyst lowered the price target to $6 from $8. “We had hoped to see a more meaningful pickup in customer traffic trends over the May/June time frame,” the firm wrote. Noodles has been working to return some key value pricing to the menu after raising prices earlier this year, they noted.

“As we look to Placer AI traffic data for NDLS across 2Q23 we have only seen traffic results lift an estimated 160bps in June vs. the depressed April levels and we are lowering our 2Q23 systemwide same store sales (SSS) estimate to (3.1)% from our prior estimate of (0.3)%,” the firm wrote.

Fast casual restaurants have been in focus with recent initial public offerings of CAVA Group Inc (NYSE: CAVA) and GEN Restaurant Group Inc (NASDAQ: GENK). Cava debuted in mid-June and is up nearly 71% since then, according to Renaissance Capital. GEN debuted last week and is up more than 39%.

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