Rolls Royce share price has been in an upward trend in the past few days. The price has moved from a low of 251p to a high of 293p. It is now trading at 284p. This performance has made it among the best-performing stock in the FTSE 100.
The biggest contributor to Rolls Royce share price gain is possibly a research note published by Citi, the giant American bank. In a note to investors, the company said that the shares were currently undervalued. As such, they recommended buying the stock with a price target of 564p. This means that, at the current price, the bank sees the stock almost doubling.
Citi is not the only bank seeing some positive momentum on Rolls Royce share price. In a note released last week, analysts at Panmure Gordon upgraded the stock to buy with a target of 387p. Analysts at Morgan Stanley are also seeing more upside for the shares and expect it to rise to 357p. However, those at Credit Suisse expect the stock to drop to 210p.
In general, the average consensus for Rolls Royce share price is 414p, which implies a 45% upside from the current level.
For starters, Rolls Royce is among the biggest industrial giants in the UK. The company is well-known for its civil aviation industry, where it supplies its jet engines to many wide-engine planes. It competes with other jet engine manufacturers like Safran and General Electric. In this division, the company makes a small margin selling the engines and more money servicing them.
It achieves this by entering into long-term contracts with airlines. Therefore, as a result of the virus, this segment has seen tepid demand. Its other segments, including defence and power engines have also underperformed but at a slower margin. In the first half of the year, the company spent £3 billion because of the “historic shock” caused by the disease. It will spend £4 billion throughout the year.
As a result of the business environment, the company has resulted to slash thousands of jobs in a bid to conserver cash.
Therefore, is Rolls Royce a good share to buy? This answer will depend on a coronavirus vaccine and drug. It will also depend on whether international travel will go back to normal. Personally, I believe that it is a speculative buy considering that some insiders have started to buy the stock.
For example, in the past few weeks, Ian Davis and Hsien Yang Lee have bought about a thousand shares in the company. In the past two months alone, Davis has bought more than 2,500 shares.
The daily chart shows that Rolls Royce share price has been rising in the past few days. The price is slightly below the 50-day and 100-day exponential moving averages.
At this point, the outlook of the shares is neutral, with the key support and resistance levels to watch being 245p and 300p. A move above the resistance at 300p, will see the price continue going higher while a move below 245p will see it continue falling.