Cheesecake Factory (CAKE) insiders have been busy at the sell button, with two major transactions reported on August 12, 2026.
The Cheesecake Factory Incorporated, CAKE
Director Edie A. Ames sold 3,000 shares on August 10 at $106.95 per share, totaling $320,850. Following the sale, she still holds 10,000 shares indirectly through the Ames Living Trust.
The same filing also corrected a historic omission, reporting a 500-share purchase Ames made back on March 12, 2018 at $49.51 per share. That transaction had been left out of prior Section 16 reports.
The bigger move came from President David M. Gordon, who sold 31,950 shares for total proceeds of $3,515,369. That is the kind of number that tends to catch investors’ attention.
Despite the selling, CAKE stock has kept climbing. The stock was sold at $106.95 but has since moved to $117.22, putting it just under the 52-week high of $117.97.
The stock is up 84% over the past 12 months and has gained 126.75% year-to-date, making it one of the stronger performers in the restaurant space this year.
The backdrop for all this activity is a blowout Q2 result. The Cheesecake Factory posted adjusted EPS of $1.44, well above Wall Street’s estimate of $1.15.
Revenue hit a record $1.03 billion, the first time quarterly sales crossed the $1 billion mark. Comparable sales at core locations rose 5.8%.
The strong quarter prompted several analyst moves. Mizuho raised its price target to $93. Jefferies lifted its target to $88, though it downgraded the stock from Buy to Hold. Morgan Stanley upgraded from Underweight to Equalweight and set a new price target of $80.
It is worth noting that all three price targets sit well below where the stock is currently trading at $117.22, suggesting the street has not fully caught up with the move.
InvestingPro flagged the stock as appearing overvalued based on Fair Value metrics, and TipRanks’ AI tool rated CAKE as Neutral, pointing to high balance sheet leverage and a P/E of around 26.5 as concerns, even while acknowledging the strong uptrend.
The technical sentiment signal on CAKE is currently listed as Buy, with an average daily trading volume of around 1.5 million shares and a market cap of $5.53 billion.
On August 13, The Cheesecake Factory was named to PEOPLE magazine’s “Companies That Care” list for the sixth straight year, ranking 30th on the list.
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