What Happened?

Shares of american restaurant chain BJ’s Restaurants (NASDAQ: BJRI) jumped 20.4% in the afternoon session after the company reported third-quarter financial results that featured a notable profit beat and encouraging forward-looking guidance, overshadowing a slight miss on revenue. Although total revenue of $330.2 million was up 1.4% year-on-year, it fell just short of Wall Street's forecasts. However, investors focused on the bottom line, where the company posted an adjusted profit of $0.04 per share. This marked a significant turnaround from a loss of $0.13 per share in the same period a year earlier and surpassed analysts' expectations. Furthermore, the company provided a positive outlook, raising its full-year EBITDA guidance to a midpoint of $136 million, which is above the consensus estimate of $134.5 million. This upbeat forecast likely signaled to investors that management is confident in its ability to manage costs and drive profitability, despite flattish same-store sales in the quarter.

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What Is The Market Telling Us

BJ’s shares are quite volatile and have had 15 moves greater than 5% over the last year. But moves this big are rare even for BJ's and indicate this news significantly impacted the market’s perception of the business.

The previous big move we wrote about was 18 days ago when the stock gained 5.1% on the news that a broad market rally lifted investor sentiment following a softer tone from Washington on the U.S.-China trade dispute. Major U.S. stock indexes climbed sharply, with the S&P 500 rising 1.3%, the Nasdaq gaining 1.6%, and the Dow Jones adding more than 450 points. This market-wide upswing marked a rebound from steep losses seen in the previous trading session. The positive mood was also helped by news of a multi-year partnership between OpenAI and Broadcom to develop custom chips. With no specific news released by BJ's Restaurants, the company's stock appeared to have been carried upward by the overall positive market momentum.

BJ's is down 4.6% since the beginning of the year, and at $34.27 per share, it is trading 26.8% below its 52-week high of $46.78 from July 2025. Investors who bought $1,000 worth of BJ’s shares 5 years ago would now be looking at an investment worth $1,158.

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