BMO Capital Bullish on IP
November 27, 2009 9:23 AM
BMO Capital Markets maintains their “Outperform” rating for International Paper Company (NYSE: IP), while raising their estimates. The firm also raised their target price to $34 from $30 to reflect the continued increase in pulp prices, slightly higher containerboard prices and an improvement in volumes in UFS papers.
The Firm said “Our UFS paper price forecast for 2009 and 2010 is $906/ton and $865/ton, respectively. We expect operating rates in the low 90s due to the closure of acombined 7.5% North American supply by IP and Domtar. North America linerboard prices are about $490/ton and inventories are very low. Our linerboardprice forecast for 2009 and 2010 is $515/tonne and $483/tonne, respectively. IP has been disciplined at reducing capacity to balance uncoated free sheet paper andcontainerboard markets.”
So far this year, IP has shown an impressive rally of over 117% and on Wednesday it closed at $25.67.
