Smurfit Westrock (NYSE:SW) Rating Increased to Buy at Jefferies Financial Group

Smurfit Westrock (NYSE:SW) was upgraded by stock analysts at Jefferies Financial Group from a “hold” rating to a “buy” rating in a research report issued on Monday, MarketBeat.com reports. The firm currently has a $55.00 price target on the stock, up from their prior price target of $44.00. Jefferies Financial Group’s target price would indicate a potential upside of 28.46% from the company’s current price.

Other analysts have also recently issued reports about the stock. Morgan Stanley decreased their price target on shares of Smurfit Westrock from $66.00 to $64.00 and set an “overweight” rating for the company in a report on Tuesday, March 11th. Barclays decreased their price target on shares of Smurfit Westrock from $68.00 to $64.00 and set an “overweight” rating for the company in a report on Tuesday, May 13th. Royal Bank Of Canada reduced their target price on shares of Smurfit Westrock from $57.00 to $56.00 and set an “outperform” rating for the company in a research note on Friday, May 2nd. Wells Fargo & Company reduced their target price on shares of Smurfit Westrock from $53.00 to $43.00 and set an “equal weight” rating for the company in a research note on Tuesday, April 8th. Finally, Truist Financial reduced their target price on shares of Smurfit Westrock from $62.00 to $50.00 and set a “buy” rating for the company in a research note on Tuesday, April 22nd. One analyst has rated the stock with a hold rating and nine have issued a buy rating to the company. Based on data from MarketBeat, Smurfit Westrock currently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus price target of $58.50.

Smurfit Westrock Stock Performance

SW stock opened at $42.82 on Monday. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.72, a quick ratio of 0.93 and a current ratio of 1.43. The stock has a market cap of $22.35 billion, a P/E ratio of 35.10 and a beta of 1.04. The firm has a 50 day simple moving average of $42.84 and a 200 day simple moving average of $48.04. Smurfit Westrock has a 52 week low of $37.01 and a 52 week high of $56.99.

Smurfit Westrock (NYSE:SW) last posted its quarterly earnings results on Thursday, May 1st. The company reported $0.73 EPS for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $0.65 by $0.08. The business had revenue of $7.66 billion during the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $7.41 billion. Smurfit Westrock had a net margin of 1.98% and a return on equity of 7.38%. Smurfit Westrock’s quarterly revenue was up 161.3% on a year-over-year basis. Research analysts anticipate that Smurfit Westrock will post 3.25 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Insider Transactions at Smurfit Westrock

In other news, Director Irial Finan acquired 15,180 shares of Smurfit Westrock stock in a transaction dated Tuesday, May 6th. The stock was acquired at an average cost of $39.21 per share, for a total transaction of $595,207.80. Following the completion of the purchase, the director now owns 54,893 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $2,152,354.53. This represents a 38.22% increase in their ownership of the stock. The acquisition was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which is accessible through this link. 0.49% of the stock is owned by corporate insiders.

Institutional Trading of Smurfit Westrock

Institutional investors and hedge funds have recently modified their holdings of the company. Vanguard Group Inc. raised its stake in Smurfit Westrock by 0.4% during the 1st quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 79,187,333 shares of the company’s stock valued at $3,564,678,000 after purchasing an additional 316,074 shares during the last quarter. Norges Bank acquired a new position in Smurfit Westrock during the 4th quarter valued at $1,300,041,000. Nuveen LLC acquired a new position in Smurfit Westrock during the 1st quarter valued at $1,051,299,000. Nuveen Asset Management LLC raised its stake in Smurfit Westrock by 51.6% during the 4th quarter. Nuveen Asset Management LLC now owns 20,720,312 shares of the company’s stock valued at $1,115,996,000 after purchasing an additional 7,050,781 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Capital Research Global Investors raised its stake in Smurfit Westrock by 1.8% during the 4th quarter. Capital Research Global Investors now owns 18,439,852 shares of the company’s stock valued at $993,170,000 after purchasing an additional 318,806 shares during the last quarter. 83.38% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

About Smurfit Westrock

Smurfit Westrock Plc, together with its subsidiaries, manufactures, distributes, and sells containerboard, corrugated containers, and other paper-based packaging products in Ireland and internationally. The company produces containerboard that it converts into corrugated containers or sells to third parties, as well as produces other types of paper, such as consumer packaging board, sack paper, graphic paper, solid board and graphic board, and other paper-based packaging products, such as consumer packaging, solid board packaging, paper sacks, and other packaging products, including bag-in-box.