Boston, MA 09\/23\/2013 (wallstreetpr) – On Friday,\u00a0Darden Restaurants, Inc. (NYSE:DRI) reported its quarterly profit which far lower than expected. Consumers have been tightening their purse strings and this is one factor that does not seem to be changing in a hurry. Its flagship Red lobster and Olive chains have taken a major hit.<\/p>\n
\u00a0Friday\u2019s trading<\/b><\/p>\n
In Friday\u2019s trading\u00a0Darden Restaurants, Inc. (NYSE:DRI) stock dipped by 7.14%. The opening price of the shares was $47.47 which rose to an intraday high of $47.83 and closed at $45.78. Approximately 6.34 million shares were traded on Friday. An average volume of 1.50 million shares were traded over 30 days.<\/p>\n
The quarter<\/b><\/p>\n
Darden Restaurants, Inc. (NYSE:DRI)\u00a0said that its net income had dropped to $70.2 million or 53 cents\/share in the Q1 that ended 25 August. In comparison the net income had been $110.8M or 85 cents \/share in the same quarter in 2012. The average analyst projection had been earnings per share of 70 cents.<\/p>\n
\u00a0Numerous reasons<\/b><\/p>\n
Several reasons have been cited for the downslide. The economy has been very shaky and taxes have been on the rise. Lower-cost meals are what customers are opting for. Darden Restaurants, Inc. (NYSE:DRI))\u2019s restaurant patrons are from the middle-income group and this is the class that has been hit badly and the trends of eating out have changed greatly. The LongHorn Stakehouse chain is also a Darden Restaurants, Inc. (NYSE:DRI)<\/p>\n
Enterprise. Its business has also been hit very badly.<\/p>\n
Dip in sales will continue<\/b><\/p>\n
\u00a0Clarence Otis, Darden Restaurants, Inc. (NYSE:DRI)\u2019s\u00a0 Chief Executive officer said that that he expects the volatility in sales to rise even further and that consumers will continue being thrifty. In the quarter, there was a 4% drop in sales at Olive Garden restaurants that had been operational for at least 16 months. Typically, these used to account for 50% of the company\u2019s overall revenue. There was also a 3.3% drop in the total same-restaurant sales at Red Lobster, olive Garden and LongHorn Stakehouse.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Boston, MA 09\/23\/2013 (wallstreetpr) – On Friday,\u00a0Darden Restaurants, Inc. (NYSE:DRI) reported its quarterly profit which far lower than expected. Consumers have been tightening their purse […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":32,"featured_media":9066,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"rop_custom_images_group":[],"rop_custom_messages_group":[],"rop_publish_now":"initial","rop_publish_now_accounts":{"twitter_2902945987_2902945987":""},"rop_publish_now_history":[],"rop_publish_now_status":"pending","footnotes":""},"categories":[2236],"tags":[3013,3014],"stock_ticker":[],"class_list":["post-9065","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-business","tag-darden-restaurants-inc-nysedri","tag-nysedri","entry"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n