Barclays Cuts Smurfit Westrock (NYSE:SW) Price Target to $63.00

Smurfit Westrock (NYSE:SW) had its target price trimmed by Barclays from $64.00 to $63.00 in a report issued on Monday morning,Benzinga reports. The firm currently has an overweight rating on the stock.

A number of other research firms have also commented on SW. Jefferies Financial Group raised shares of Smurfit Westrock from a “hold” rating to a “buy” rating and upped their price objective for the company from $44.00 to $55.00 in a research note on Monday, June 16th. Morgan Stanley reduced their price objective on shares of Smurfit Westrock from $66.00 to $64.00 and set an “overweight” rating on the stock in a research note on Tuesday, March 11th. Truist Financial reduced their price objective on shares of Smurfit Westrock from $62.00 to $50.00 and set a “buy” rating on the stock in a research note on Tuesday, April 22nd. Wells Fargo & Company reduced their price objective on shares of Smurfit Westrock from $53.00 to $43.00 and set an “equal weight” rating on the stock in a research note on Tuesday, April 8th. Finally, Royal Bank Of Canada reduced their price objective on shares of Smurfit Westrock from $57.00 to $56.00 and set an “outperform” rating on the stock in a research note on Friday, May 2nd. One equities research analyst has rated the stock with a hold rating and nine have assigned a buy rating to the stock. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, Smurfit Westrock presently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus target price of $58.40.

Smurfit Westrock Trading Up 2.9%

Shares of NYSE SW opened at $47.20 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. Smurfit Westrock has a 52-week low of $37.01 and a 52-week high of $56.99. The firm has a 50 day moving average price of $43.31 and a two-hundred day moving average price of $47.26. The stock has a market cap of $24.64 billion, a P/E ratio of 38.69 and a beta of 1.02.

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

Smurfit Westrock Announces Dividend

The business also recently announced a dividend, which was paid on Wednesday, June 18th. Investors of record on Monday, May 19th were paid a dividend of $0.4308 per share. This represents a yield of 3.7%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Friday, May 16th. Smurfit Westrock’s dividend payout ratio is presently 140.98%.

Insider Transactions at Smurfit Westrock

In related news, Director Irial Finan bought 15,180 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Tuesday, May 6th. The shares were acquired at an average cost of $39.21 per share, with a total value of $595,207.80. Following the completion of the purchase, the director directly owned 54,893 shares in the company, valued at $2,152,354.53. The trade was a 38.22% increase in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which can be accessed through this hyperlink. 0.49% of the stock is currently owned by corporate insiders.

Institutional Inflows and Outflows

A number of large investors have recently made changes to their positions in the business. Vanguard Group Inc. lifted its stake in shares of Smurfit Westrock by 0.4% in the first quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 79,187,333 shares of the company’s stock valued at $3,564,678,000 after buying an additional 316,074 shares in the last quarter. Norges Bank bought a new position in shares of Smurfit Westrock in the fourth quarter valued at $1,300,041,000. Nuveen LLC purchased a new stake in shares of Smurfit Westrock in the first quarter valued at about $1,051,299,000. Nuveen Asset Management LLC raised its holdings in shares of Smurfit Westrock by 51.6% in the fourth 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 holdings in shares of Smurfit Westrock by 1.8% in the fourth 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 owned by institutional investors.

Smurfit Westrock Company Profile

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.