UPDATE: Bank of America Merrill Lynch Reiterates Underperform Rating, Raises PT for Cracker Barrel

In a report published earlier today, Bank of America Merrill Lynch reiterated its Underperform rating for Cracker Barrel Old Country Store, Inc.

and raised its price target from $48.00 to $52.00. BofA Merrill Lynch went on to say “Results were driven by same store sales growth of 3.1% for restaurants and 0.3% for retail, the second best performance for restaurants since 2005 just behind last quarter's up 3.5% result. Sales rose faster than the industry as measured by Knapp-Track and included a 0.6% traffic increase, marking the second consecutive quarter of positive traffic. Restaurant comps remained good into March and April—up 2.2% and 1.9%, respectively, in comparison to the rest of the industry which began slowing in March. Restaurant margins expanded by 130 bps to 12.1%, ahead of our 11.3% expectation.” Cracker Barrel Old Country Store, Inc. closed yesterday at $57.38.