Truist Financial Reaffirms Hold Rating for Greif (NYSE:GEF)

Greif (NYSE:GEF)‘s stock had its “hold” rating restated by analysts at Truist Financial in a research report issued to clients and investors on Friday, Benzinga reports. They presently have a $67.00 target price on the industrial products company’s stock, down from their prior target price of $69.00. Truist Financial’s price objective would suggest a potential upside of 8.08% from the company’s current price.

Several other research firms also recently commented on GEF. Stifel Nicolaus reaffirmed a “buy” rating and issued a $88.00 price target on shares of Greif in a research note on Monday. Raymond James began coverage on shares of Greif in a research report on Friday, July 19th. They set a “market perform” rating on the stock. Bank of America raised shares of Greif from a “neutral” rating to a “buy” rating and boosted their price objective for the stock from $76.00 to $77.00 in a research note on Monday, June 17th. StockNews.com cut Greif from a “buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a research note on Wednesday, July 10th. Finally, Wells Fargo & Company cut their target price on Greif from $80.00 to $76.00 and set an “overweight” rating on the stock in a research note on Monday. Three equities research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and three have assigned a buy rating to the stock. According to data from MarketBeat, the company presently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus target price of $77.00.

Greif Price Performance

Shares of NYSE:GEF traded up $0.06 on Friday, reaching $61.99. The company’s stock had a trading volume of 1,362 shares, compared to its average volume of 165,466. The company has a 50-day simple moving average of $61.06 and a 200 day simple moving average of $62.75. Greif has a 52-week low of $55.95 and a 52-week high of $74.46. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.38, a quick ratio of 1.17 and a current ratio of 1.57. The company has a market cap of $2.92 billion, a P/E ratio of 13.33 and a beta of 0.91.

Greif (NYSE:GEF) last released its quarterly earnings results on Wednesday, August 28th. The industrial products company reported $1.03 EPS for the quarter, missing the consensus estimate of $1.17 by ($0.14). Greif had a return on equity of 15.57% and a net margin of 5.17%. The company had revenue of $1.45 billion during the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $1.43 billion. As a group, equities research analysts anticipate that Greif will post 4.45 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Institutional Inflows and Outflows

A number of hedge funds have recently modified their holdings of GEF. Truist Financial Corp acquired a new position in shares of Greif in the 2nd quarter valued at about $452,000. Quarry LP grew its position in Greif by 71.9% during the second quarter. Quarry LP now owns 545 shares of the industrial products company’s stock valued at $31,000 after buying an additional 228 shares during the period. Systematic Financial Management LP grew its position in shares of Greif by 12.3% during the 2nd quarter. Systematic Financial Management LP now owns 262,058 shares of the industrial products company’s stock valued at $15,061,000 after acquiring an additional 28,669 shares during the period. Creative Planning grew its position in shares of Greif by 16.4% in the second quarter. Creative Planning now owns 10,260 shares of the industrial products company’s stock valued at $590,000 after purchasing an additional 1,448 shares during the period. Finally, Dark Forest Capital Management LP boosted its holdings in Greif by 21.7% in the 2nd quarter. Dark Forest Capital Management LP now owns 13,737 shares of the industrial products company’s stock worth $789,000 after buying an additional 2,446 shares during the last quarter. 45.74% of the stock is owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

Greif Company Profile

Greif, Inc engages in the production and sale of industrial packaging products and services worldwide. The company operates through Global Industrial Packaging; Paper Packaging & Services; and Land Management segments. The Global Industrial Packaging segment produces and sells industrial packaging products, including steel, fiber, and plastic drums; rigid and flexible intermediate bulk containers; closure systems for industrial packaging products; transit protection products; water bottles, and remanufactured and reconditioned industrial containers; and various services, such as container life cycle management, filling, logistics, warehousing, and other packaging services to chemicals, paints and pigments, food and beverage, petroleum, industrial coatings, agriculture, pharmaceuticals, mineral product, and other industries.