By Dhirendra Tripathi

Investing.com – Tyson Foods, Inc. (NYSE:) stock traded 1.4% lower Monday after BMO Capital downgraded it to ‘market perform’ while cutting the target to $99.

This new goal is 14% less than $115.

“Our downgrade does not reflect a change in our long-term view of Tyson’s ability to affect internal change through its actions, operational improvements, or capacity expansions, but rather our disciplined approach and a potential reduction to underlying fundamentals outside chicken, particularly beef,” BMO analyst Kenneth Zaslow said in a note.

Zaslow believes that lower margins for beef packers will offset any improvement in the chicken industry.

Tyson’s stock is now up 16% compared to 6.6% gain in the previous year.

A report in The Wall Street Journal earlier this month said the Justice Department is investigating whether poultry companies are engaged in anticompetitive sharing about employment practices that capped plant workers’ wages.

This probe includes rivals such as Pilgrims Pride (NASDAQ) Sanderson Farms Also available at (NASDAQ:). Employees at meat factories claim that their employers conspired in order to trade compensation data for lower wages.

Jimmy Dean sausages’ maker expects to reach $50 billion in current year revenue at the middle point. This is more than the August estimate of $46.5 million at the centre of the range. The company expects volume growth between 2%-3%.