Stella-Jones Inc. (TSE:SJ) Receives Average Rating of “Moderate Buy” from Analysts

Stella-Jones Inc. (TSE:SJ) has earned an average rating of “Moderate Buy” from the seven analysts that are presently covering the stock, Marketbeat Ratings reports. Two investment analysts have rated the stock with a hold recommendation, four have assigned a buy recommendation and one has given a strong buy recommendation to the company. The average 12 month price target among brokerages that have issued a report on the stock in the last year is C$88.50.

Several research firms have issued reports on SJ. CIBC raised Stella-Jones from a “neutral” rating to an “outperform” rating and lifted their price target for the company from C$83.00 to C$86.00 in a research note on Wednesday, January 15th. Scotiabank cut their target price on Stella-Jones from C$95.00 to C$85.00 in a research note on Thursday, November 7th. TD Securities decreased their price target on shares of Stella-Jones from C$103.00 to C$88.00 and set a “buy” rating for the company in a research note on Thursday, November 7th. Royal Bank of Canada cut their price objective on shares of Stella-Jones from C$97.00 to C$81.00 in a research report on Thursday, November 7th. Finally, Cibc World Mkts raised shares of Stella-Jones from a “hold” rating to a “strong-buy” rating in a research report on Tuesday, January 14th.

Stella-Jones Price Performance

SJ opened at C$73.51 on Monday. The company has a fifty day simple moving average of C$71.17 and a 200 day simple moving average of C$82.92. The company has a quick ratio of 1.20, a current ratio of 6.57 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 93.08. The stock has a market cap of C$4.14 billion, a P/E ratio of 11.88, a P/E/G ratio of 2.40 and a beta of 0.64. Stella-Jones has a 12 month low of C$65.43 and a 12 month high of C$98.00.

Stella-Jones (TSE:SJ) last released its quarterly earnings results on Wednesday, November 6th. The company reported C$1.42 EPS for the quarter, missing analysts’ consensus estimates of C$1.70 by C($0.28). Stella-Jones had a return on equity of 20.64% and a net margin of 10.20%. During the same period last year, the business posted $1.91 EPS. On average, research analysts expect that Stella-Jones will post 6.4457565 EPS for the current year.

Stella-Jones Dividend Announcement

The company also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Friday, December 20th. Stockholders of record on Monday, December 2nd were issued a $0.28 dividend. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Monday, December 2nd. This represents a $1.12 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 1.52%. Stella-Jones’s payout ratio is 18.09%.

Insider Buying and Selling

In other news, Senior Officer Richard Cuddihy bought 500 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction dated Wednesday, November 13th. The shares were bought at an average price of C$70.85 per share, with a total value of C$35,424.00. Also, Director Patrick Kirkham purchased 2,035 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Thursday, December 19th. The shares were purchased at an average cost of C$70.36 per share, with a total value of C$143,179.34. Over the last 90 days, insiders acquired 12,785 shares of company stock worth $896,221. Company insiders own 0.14% of the company’s stock.

Stella-Jones Company Profile

Stella-Jones Inc produces and sells lumber and wood products. The company operates in two segments: Pressure-treated wood, which includes utility poles, railway ties, residential lumber, and industrial products; and Logs & Lumber segment comprises of the sales of logs harvested in the course of the company’s procurement process that is determined to be unsuitable for use as utility poles, it also includes the sale of excess lumber to local home-building markets.