XPO (NYSE:XPO) Earns Buy Rating from Benchmark

XPO (NYSE:XPO)‘s stock had its “buy” rating reaffirmed by analysts at Benchmark in a research report issued to clients and investors on Thursday, Benzinga reports. They presently have a $140.00 target price on the transportation company’s stock. Benchmark’s target price indicates a potential upside of 20.69% from the stock’s previous close.

A number of other equities analysts have also recently issued reports on XPO. TD Cowen decreased their target price on XPO from $143.00 to $142.00 and set a “buy” rating on the stock in a report on Thursday, September 5th. Raymond James reduced their price objective on shares of XPO from $135.00 to $130.00 and set an “outperform” rating for the company in a research note on Monday, June 24th. Evercore ISI dropped their target price on shares of XPO from $144.00 to $124.00 and set an “outperform” rating on the stock in a research report on Tuesday, June 25th. Susquehanna boosted their price target on shares of XPO from $145.00 to $160.00 and gave the company a “positive” rating in a report on Wednesday. Finally, JPMorgan Chase & Co. decreased their price objective on shares of XPO from $147.00 to $143.00 and set an “overweight” rating for the company in a research note on Friday, September 6th. Two investment analysts have rated the stock with a sell rating, fifteen have assigned a buy rating and one has issued a strong buy rating to the company. According to MarketBeat.com, the company presently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average price target of $130.18.

XPO Price Performance

Shares of NYSE:XPO traded up $4.51 during trading hours on Thursday, hitting $116.00. 137,492 shares of the company’s stock traded hands, compared to its average volume of 1,462,803. The company’s fifty day simple moving average is $112.91 and its two-hundred day simple moving average is $113.46. The company has a market cap of $13.49 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 56.86, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 1.72 and a beta of 2.11. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 2.63, a quick ratio of 1.00 and a current ratio of 1.00. XPO has a 52 week low of $65.80 and a 52 week high of $130.51.

XPO (NYSE:XPO) last issued its earnings results on Thursday, August 1st. The transportation company reported $1.12 earnings per share for the quarter, topping analysts’ consensus estimates of $1.01 by $0.11. The firm had revenue of $2.08 billion during the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $2.07 billion. XPO had a net margin of 4.48% and a return on equity of 32.49%. The firm’s revenue for the quarter was up 8.5% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same period last year, the firm posted $0.71 earnings per share. As a group, equities analysts anticipate that XPO will post 3.6 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Institutional Investors Weigh In On XPO

A number of hedge funds and other institutional investors have recently made changes to their positions in XPO. Capital Research Global Investors increased its holdings in XPO by 49.9% in the fourth quarter. Capital Research Global Investors now owns 9,290,937 shares of the transportation company’s stock worth $813,824,000 after buying an additional 3,094,390 shares during the last quarter. D1 Capital Partners L.P. acquired a new position in shares of XPO during the 2nd quarter worth $271,532,000. Norges Bank bought a new position in shares of XPO during the 4th quarter valued at $79,592,000. Clearbridge Investments LLC lifted its stake in shares of XPO by 33.4% in the 1st quarter. Clearbridge Investments LLC now owns 2,234,691 shares of the transportation company’s stock valued at $272,699,000 after purchasing an additional 560,079 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Capital World Investors lifted its stake in shares of XPO by 13.1% in the 4th quarter. Capital World Investors now owns 4,349,181 shares of the transportation company’s stock valued at $380,945,000 after purchasing an additional 503,388 shares during the last quarter. 97.73% of the stock is owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

About XPO

XPO, Inc provides freight transportation services in the United States, rest of North America, France, the United Kingdom, rest of Europe, and internationally. The company operates in two segments, North American LTL and European Transportation. The North American LTL segment provides customers with less-than-truckload (LTL) services, such as geographic density and day-definite domestic services.