Darden Restaurants, Inc. (DRI) updated its FY13 earnings guidance on Thursday. The company provided earnings per share guidance of $3.29-3.49 for the period, compared to the Thomson Reuters consensus earnings per share estimate of $3.41. The company issued revenue guidance of +7.5-8.5% to $8.60-8.68 billion, compared to the consensus revenue estimate of $8.60 billion.

Several analysts have also recently commented on the stock. Analysts at Zacks downgraded shares of Darden Restaurants from a neutral rating to an underperform rating in a research note to investors on Tuesday. They now have a $42.00 price target on the stock. On a related note, analysts at Goldman Sachs downgraded shares of Darden Restaurants from a buy rating to a neutral rating in a research note to investors on Thursday, December 13th. They now have a $49.00 price target on the stock. Finally, analysts at Sterne Agee cut their price target on shares of Darden Restaurants to $55.00 in a research note to investors on Wednesday, December 5th.

Shares of Darden Restaurants, Inc. (DRI) opened at 46.81 on Thursday. Darden Restaurants, Inc. (DRI) has a one year low of $43.80 and a one year high of $57.93. The company has a market cap of $6.020 billion and a P/E ratio of 12.84.

Darden Restaurants last issued its quarterly earnings data on Thursday, December 20th. The company reported $0.26 EPS for the quarter, meeting the Thomson Reuters consensus estimate of $0.26. The company had revenue of $1.96 billion for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $1.95 billion. During the same quarter in 2011, the company posted $0.41 earnings per share. Darden Restaurants’s revenue was up 7.0% compared to the same quarter last year. Analysts expect that Darden Restaurants, Inc. (DRI) will post $3.38 EPS for the current fiscal year.

The company also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which is scheduled for Friday, February 1st. Investors of record on Thursday, January 10th will be paid a dividend of $0.50 per share. This represents a $2.00 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 4.27%.

Darden Restaurants, Inc. (Darden) is a company owned and full-service restaurant company. As of May 27, 2012, the Company operated through subsidiaries 1,994 restaurants in the United States and Canada.

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