Do analysts think that IMI is a buy, hold or sell?

Buy, hold and sell recommendations from company analysts can be a useful signal about the sentiment around a stock. Examining the 'consensus' rating among brokers can give you a sense of whether the share is worth buying or not. Take IMI (LON:IMI) as an example...

Shares in the company have risen by 2.82% over the past month and it’s currently trading at 1,314p. But what do the analysts that cover it think?

Based on the broker 'consensus', there could be reasons to believe that the positive recent trend will continue. In terms of trading recommendations, IMI currently has:

• 4 Buy recommendations

• 7 Hold recommendations

• 0 Sell recommendations

This suggests that analysts are generally upbeat about the outlook.

At its current price of 1,314p, shares in IMI are trading at a discount of -30.0% to its 52 week high price. The 1-year performance of the shares has been -22.8%.

While analyst forecasts can be a useful guide to what City 'experts' think about a stock's near term future, they can be unreliable. To get a better idea about the strengths and weaknesses of IMI it's worth doing some investigation yourself. Indeed, we've identified some areas of concern with IMI that you can find out about here.