FedEx Stock Is Rising. It Got Upgraded After a Tough Week.
Updated March 24, 2025, 5:09 pm EDT / Original March 24, 2025, 8:12 am EDT
Shares of FedEx
FedEx stock closed up 5.2% at $242.32, while the S&P 500
DJIA
Jefferies analyst Stephanie Moore upgraded FedEx stock to Buy from Hold, but reduced her target for the price to $275 from $300.
An upgrade with a lowered price target highlights what has been happening with FedEx stock. Coming into Monday trading, shares were down 18% year to date, including a 6.5% drop on Friday following the company’s fiscal third-quarter earnings report, released on Thursday evening.
FedEx announced weaker-than-expected earnings per share and cut its full-year financial guidance. For fiscal 2025, FedEx expects sales to come in flat to down year over year, implying a fourth-quarter decline of about 5% that would leave the total about $1.2 billion short of the $22.2 billion Wall Street expected.
Business is slowing down, at least partly because of fear that a trade war could mean recession for the U.S. economy.
Moore writes that investors are “overly distracted by the macro” and that FedEx’s cost reductions and restructuring will yield future gains.
She has a point. FedEx’s valuation looks depressed relative to its history. Recent declines have left shares trading less than 12 times estimated calendar 2025 earnings. Shares have traded for closer to 14 times earnings over the past few years.
With the upgrade, 63% of analysts covering FedEx stock have Buy ratings, according to FactSet. The average Buy-rating ratio for stocks in the S&P 500 is about 55%. The average analyst price target for FedEx stock is about $292.
That price target is down from about $313 shortly before earnings were reported.
Write to Al Root at allen.root@dowjones.com
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