DPZ Stock Eyes Best Month In Over A Year: TD Cowen Sees More Upside From Traffic Growth But Flags Franchise Challenges

TD Cowen increased its price target on Domino’s Pizza, citing strong order growth despite ticket pressures.

• TD Cowen raised its price target on Domino's to $310 from $295 while reiterating a Hold rating.
• The firm sees new menu launches and the CEO transition supporting second-half results, but warns of risk to franchise margins. 
• Outgoing CEO Russell Weiner said growing order volume remains central to Domino's long-term strategy.

Domino’s Pizza Inc. (DPZ) stock is heading toward its strongest monthly performance in more than a year as renewed investor optimism around traffic growth and sales momentum meets a cautious Wall Street outlook. 

TD Cowen Lifts Domino’s Price Target 

TD Cowen raised its price target for Domino’s Pizza to $310 from $295 while maintaining a ‘Hold’ rating on the stock, following a stronger-than-anticipated customer traffic during the company’s fiscal second quarter (Q2), along with confirmation of its full-year same-store sales expectations.

The analyst noted that while Domino’s continues to benefit from strong customer demand, challenges remain around slower gains in average order value and pressure on franchisee profitability. These issues, according to the analyst, could influence investor sentiment as the company works through the rest of the year. 

Upcoming menu launches and leadership changes are expected to play an important role in shaping Domino’s performance in the second half of the year. In June, Domino's announced that its U.S. President, Joe Jordan, will succeed Russell Weiner as CEO in October. 

Domino’s Pizza stock edged 0.3% higher overnight, heading into Tuesday. The stock is on track for its best month since November 2024. 

Order Growth Remains Domino's North Star 

Domino’s outgoing CEO Russell Weiner used the Q2 earnings call to reinforce a long-term strategy centered on growing customer orders, explaining that transaction growth remains the strongest indicator of sustained expansion despite a challenging environment for the quick-service restaurant industry.

“Order counts drive long-term success. Order counts matter because they fuel growth for both the brand and our franchisees. The winners in QSR over time are the brands that can grow order counts while driving healthy ticket through disciplined pricing.” 

Weiner also highlighted continued momentum through third-party delivery platforms, saying Domino’s has strengthened its presence on Uber (UBER) and DoorDash (DASH).

Although customer traffic exceeded expectations, Weiner acknowledged that Q2 same-store sales fell short of internal forecasts due to disappointing average ticket growth. He attributed much of the weakness to the product mix and marketing execution rather than to macroeconomic conditions, and added that the company’s premium pizza campaign failed to resonate as expected after the successful rollout of Stuffed Crust Pizza a year earlier.

DPZ Stock: Retail Traders View 

On Stocktwits, retail sentiment around the stock improved to ‘extremely bullish’ from ‘neutral’ territory the previous day with a 1,500% jump in message volume over the last 24 hours. 

A user said, “$DPZ this is #1 thing AI cannot touch.”

DPZ stock has declined 21% year-to-date. 

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