Stifel Upgrades FedEx On Accelerating US Parcel Market

FedEx Corporation (NYSE: FDX) has exhibited strength amid the pandemic and could continue benefiting from the growing U.S. parcel market due to an acceleration of e-commerce trends, according to Stifel.

The FedEx Analyst: David Ross upgraded FedEx from Hold to Buy, while raising the price target from $175 to $281.

The FedEx Thesis: At the beginning of the year, the company had projected the U.S. parcel market to grow to 100 million packages per day by 2026 and now expects will to happen by 2023 given the strong growth in e-commerce, Ross said in the note.

“This means the pie is getting significantly bigger and that growth investments will continue. We believe it should be better than this, and the outlook from the parcel experts at SJ Consulting is for even greater growth, forecasting 108mm packages/day in 2023,” the analyst wrote in a note.

While saying that these trends should lend upside to both FedEx and archrival United Parcel Service, Inc. (NYSE: UPS), Ross pointed out that FedEx’s stock “is trading at an above-average discount to UPS.”

FDX Price Action: Shares of FedEx had risen by 2% to $246.13 at the time of publication Thursday.