Stella-Jones Inc. (TSE:SJ) Receives C$88.50 Average Target Price from Analysts

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

Several analysts have recently issued reports on SJ shares. Scotiabank decreased their target price on shares of Stella-Jones from C$95.00 to C$85.00 in a research report on Thursday, November 7th. TD Securities decreased their target price on shares of Stella-Jones from C$103.00 to C$88.00 and set a “buy” rating on the stock in a research report on Thursday, November 7th. Royal Bank of Canada reduced their price objective on shares of Stella-Jones from C$97.00 to C$81.00 in a research report on Thursday, November 7th. 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. Finally, CIBC raised shares of Stella-Jones from a “neutral” rating to an “outperform” rating and increased their price objective for the stock from C$83.00 to C$86.00 in a research report on Wednesday, January 15th.

Insiders Place Their Bets

In other Stella-Jones news, Senior Officer Richard Cuddihy acquired 500 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction dated Wednesday, November 13th. The shares were purchased at an average cost of C$70.85 per share, for a total transaction of C$35,424.00. Also, Director Rhodri Harries acquired 5,000 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction dated Thursday, November 14th. The shares were acquired at an average price of C$69.50 per share, for a total transaction of C$347,500.00. Insiders have purchased 12,785 shares of company stock worth $896,221 in the last three months. Corporate insiders own 0.14% of the company’s stock.

Stella-Jones Stock Down 1.0 %

Shares of TSE SJ opened at C$71.46 on Monday. The firm’s 50-day moving average price is C$71.33 and its 200-day moving average price is C$82.54. The company has a current ratio of 6.57, a quick ratio of 1.20 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 93.08. The stock has a market capitalization of C$4.03 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 11.54, 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 announced its earnings results on Wednesday, November 6th. The company reported C$1.42 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, missing the consensus estimate of C$1.70 by C($0.28). Stella-Jones had a net margin of 10.20% and a return on equity of 20.64%. During the same quarter in the previous year, the firm earned $1.91 EPS. On average, equities research analysts anticipate that Stella-Jones will post 6.4457565 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Stella-Jones Dividend Announcement

The business also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Friday, December 20th. Shareholders of record on Monday, December 2nd were paid a $0.28 dividend. The ex-dividend date was Monday, December 2nd. This represents a $1.12 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 1.57%. Stella-Jones’s dividend payout ratio is currently 18.09%.

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.