Here's what analysts think about the Ds Smith share price

Taking note of the trading recommendations of professional analysts and brokers can be one way of finding shares with the potential to perform well. These city experts are paid to know the companies they cover better than anyone. So their views on what to buy and sell can be a useful reference point.

Take Ds Smith (LON:SMDS) as an example. Shares in the company have risen by 2.78% over the past month and it’s currently trading at 328.5p. But what are the trading recommendations of the analysts that cover it?

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

• 4 Buy recommendations

• 4 Hold recommendations

• 0 Sell recommendations

This suggests that analysts are generally upbeat about the outlook.

At its current price of 328.5p, shares in Ds Smith are trading at a discount of -29.5% to its 52 week high price. The 1-year performance of the shares has been -22.7%.

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 Ds Smith it's worth doing some investigation yourself. Indeed, we've identified some areas of concern with Ds Smith that you can find out about here.