Forward Air Co. (NASDAQ:FWRD) Receives $80.14 Average Price Target from Brokerages

Forward Air Co. (NASDAQ:FWRD) has been given an average recommendation of “Hold” by the eight research firms that are presently covering the company, Marketbeat reports. One equities research analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, four have issued a hold rating and three have issued a buy rating on the company. The average twelve-month price objective among brokers that have issued a report on the stock in the last year is $80.14.

A number of equities research analysts have commented on FWRD shares. Wolfe Research downgraded Forward Air from a “peer perform” rating to an “underperform” rating and set a $50.00 target price for the company. in a report on Wednesday, January 10th. Stifel Nicolaus dropped their price objective on Forward Air from $80.00 to $55.00 and set a “hold” rating for the company in a research note on Monday, January 22nd. Benchmark restated a “hold” rating on shares of Forward Air in a research report on Wednesday, April 24th. Robert W. Baird decreased their price objective on shares of Forward Air from $50.00 to $40.00 and set a “neutral” rating on the stock in a research report on Friday, March 1st. Finally, StockNews.com cut shares of Forward Air from a “hold” rating to a “sell” rating in a research report on Monday, March 18th.

Institutional Trading of Forward Air

Several institutional investors have recently made changes to their positions in FWRD. Vanguard Group Inc. boosted its holdings in Forward Air by 2.2% in the fourth quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 2,982,873 shares of the transportation company’s stock valued at $187,533,000 after acquiring an additional 63,322 shares during the last quarter. Dimensional Fund Advisors LP boosted its position in Forward Air by 3.3% during the 4th quarter. Dimensional Fund Advisors LP now owns 803,393 shares of the transportation company’s stock worth $50,511,000 after purchasing an additional 25,523 shares during the period. Assenagon Asset Management S.A. lifted its stake in shares of Forward Air by 15,487.6% during the third quarter. Assenagon Asset Management S.A. now owns 726,538 shares of the transportation company’s stock worth $49,942,000 after purchasing an additional 721,877 shares in the last quarter. Norges Bank purchased a new stake in shares of Forward Air in the fourth quarter worth about $43,281,000. Finally, UBS Group AG boosted its position in shares of Forward Air by 809.8% in the third quarter. UBS Group AG now owns 683,566 shares of the transportation company’s stock worth $46,988,000 after buying an additional 608,430 shares during the period. 97.03% of the stock is owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

Forward Air Stock Performance

Shares of Forward Air stock opened at $20.76 on Friday. The stock has a market capitalization of $547.44 million, a price-to-earnings ratio of 3.23 and a beta of 1.06. The firm’s fifty day simple moving average is $27.66 and its 200-day simple moving average is $47.49. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 2.38, a current ratio of 1.46 and a quick ratio of 1.46. Forward Air has a 12 month low of $20.70 and a 12 month high of $121.38.

Forward Air (NASDAQ:FWRD) last released its earnings results on Thursday, February 29th. The transportation company reported $0.81 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, missing analysts’ consensus estimates of $0.97 by ($0.16). The company had revenue of $338.43 million during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $406.96 million. Forward Air had a net margin of 10.58% and a return on equity of 15.30%. The company’s revenue for the quarter was down 16.0% on a year-over-year basis. During the same period in the previous year, the firm posted $1.65 EPS. As a group, equities analysts forecast that Forward Air will post 0.56 earnings per share for the current year.

About Forward Air

Forward Air Corporation, together with its subsidiaries, operates as an asset-light freight and logistics company in the United States and Canada. It operates in two segments, Expedited Freight and Intermodal. The Expedited Freight segment provides expedited regional, inter-regional, and national less-than-truckload services; local pick-up and delivery services; and other services, which include shipment consolidation and deconsolidation, warehousing, customs brokerage, and other handling.