Brokerages Set Stella-Jones Inc. (TSE:SJ) PT at C$88.50

Stella-Jones Inc. (TSE:SJ) has received a consensus recommendation of “Moderate Buy” from the seven analysts that are currently covering the stock, Marketbeat.com reports. Two equities research analysts have rated the stock with a hold recommendation, four have assigned a buy recommendation and one has issued a strong buy recommendation on the company. The average twelve-month price objective among brokerages that have updated their coverage on the stock in the last year is C$88.50.

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

Stella-Jones Trading Up 3.9 %

SJ opened at C$72.39 on Friday. Stella-Jones has a 12 month low of C$65.13 and a 12 month high of C$98.00. The stock has a market capitalization of C$4.05 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 12.64, a PEG ratio of 2.40 and a beta of 0.64. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 87.53, a current ratio of 6.85 and a quick ratio of 1.20. The business has a fifty day moving average price of C$70.44 and a 200 day moving average price of C$79.18.

Stella-Jones Increases Dividend

The company also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Friday, April 18th. Stockholders of record on Tuesday, April 1st will be issued a $0.31 dividend. This is an increase from Stella-Jones’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.28. This represents a $1.24 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 1.71%. Stella-Jones’s payout ratio is presently 19.56%.

Insider Activity

In other news, Director Patrick Kirkham bought 2,035 shares of Stella-Jones stock in a transaction dated Thursday, December 19th. The stock was acquired at an average cost of C$70.36 per share, with a total value of C$143,179.34. Company insiders own 0.14% of the company’s stock.

About Stella-Jones

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.