Raymond James lowered shares of Ritchie Bros. Auctioneers (NYSE: RBA) from an outperform rating to a market perform rating in a research report released on Wednesday morning, TheFlyOnTheWall.com reports. Raymond James currently has $20.00 price objective on the stock, down from their previous price objective of $22.00.
“In the past, we have been reluctant to make too much of any given month of auction data. June’s results, however, form a rather deleterious trend for Ritchie Bros. Cumulatively, GAP declined 10% in 2Q13, which followed a 2% y/y drop in 1Q13 and a 4% drop in 4Q12. At this rate, it looks unlikely that the company will finish 2013 within its target range of $4.0-$4.4 bln, and we have adjusted our forecasts accordingly. This flies in the face of our prevailing thesis on the stock. Indeed, we have been expecting Ritchie’s GAP growth to reaccelerate this year due to: (i) a dramatic ramp-up in OEM capacity during 2011/2012 and the inflated dealer inventories that followed; (ii) a global realignment of activity out of places like Europe and China (where construction has slowed) and into regions like the US (where a recovery is reportedly underway); and (iii) early traction from the EquipmentOne initiative. The fact that Ritchie’s TTM GAP is down 14%, despite these variables (and stable used equipment prices) both confounds and disappoints us.,” the firm’s analyst wrote.
A number of other firms have also recently commented on RBA. Analysts at Canaccord Genuity downgraded shares of Ritchie Bros. Auctioneers from a buy rating to a hold rating in a research note to investors on Tuesday. They now have a $20.00 price target on the stock, down previously from $25.00. Separately, analysts at Zacks upgraded shares of Ritchie Bros. Auctioneers from an underperform rating to a neutral rating in a research note to investors on Wednesday, June 12th. They now have a $21.20 price target on the stock. Finally, analysts at Robert W. Baird downgraded shares of Ritchie Bros. Auctioneers from an outperform rating to a neutral rating in a research note to investors on Monday, June 10th. They now have a $23.00 price target on the stock, down previously from $26.00.
Five research analysts have rated the stock with a sell rating, six have issued a hold rating and one has issued a buy rating to the company’s stock. The stock has an average rating of Hold and an average price target of $20.35.
Shares of Ritchie Bros. Auctioneers (NYSE: RBA) traded up 0.16% during mid-day trading on Wednesday, hitting $19.06. Ritchie Bros. Auctioneers has a one year low of $17.81 and a one year high of $23.57. The stock’s 50-day moving average is currently $20.20. The company has a market cap of $2.033 billion and a P/E ratio of 27.19.
Ritchie Bros. Auctioneers Incorporated and its subsidiaries sells industrial equipment and other assets for the construction, transportation, material handling, mining, forestry, petroleum, marine, real estate, and agricultural industries at its unreserved auctions worldwide.
