Is There Momentum Behind The Wh Smith Share Price?

It has been a wild ride for some of the UK's biggest quoted companies this year. Economic uncertainty persists and the question on the minds of many investors is where the prices of stocks like WH Smith (LON:SMWH) will go from here.

Wh Smith is one of a surprisingly small number of special shares on the London Stock Exchange that have market valuations in excess of £1 billion. The stock currently has a market capitalisation of £1,882m.

These large-cap shares are closely watched because they have an important influence on the investment funds and pension portfolios of millions of savers. So amid the chaos of Covid-19, how has the stock fared?

Over the past 12 months, the Wh Smith share price has seen an absolute move of -41.0%. On a relative basis - which take into account the movement of the wider market - the shares have moved by -32.9% over the past year and by 28.0% over the past six months.

But what now?

Do analysts rate it as a buy, sell or hold?

Regardless of recent performance, the main question for investors is what the future holds. In uncertain economic conditions, it's often difficult to get an accurate view. The good news is that analysts generally understand the market's biggest businesses better than most, so they are well-placed to make predictions. That shows up in their Buy, Hold and Sell recommendations.

Among the analysts covering Wh Smith, there are currently:

• 3 Buy recommendations
• 3 Hold recommendations
• 0 Sell recommendations

With this kind of information, it's possible to start forming a view about the outlook for any share. A combination of recent price performance and analyst recommendations gives you a flavour of whether the market is expecting a bright future - or whether there are causes for concern.

It's also worth looking at the profile of the stock to understand whether it has strong positive exposure to important factors like Quality, Value and Momentum. On that basis, Stockopedia currently classifies Wh Smith as a sucker stock. You can read more about what that means here.