American Express shares close higher, US stocks surge in Wednesday trading

Wednesday was a strong day for US stocks as the Financials, Oil & Gas and Industrial sectors contributed to the jump in shares. At the close of the trading session, the Dow Jones Industrial Average surged 2.05%. This marked a new 3-month high for the index. Meanwhile, the S&P 500 Index and the NASDAQ Composite Index also gained respectively 1.36% and 0.78% in Wednesday trading.

American Express was among the top performers of the Dow, with shares rising 6.39% or 6.33 points to 105.40 at the closing of the trading session.

At the beginning of the year, American Express reported fourth-quarter results that surpassed the expectations of analysts. While the predictions for the earnings were $2.01 per share, the company reported earnings of $2.03 per share. The expected revenue was $11.36 billion and the actual results showed a revenue of $11.365 billion. The forecast for the net card fees was $1.05 billion, while the actual fourth-quarter results amounted to $1.08 billion net card fees.

The report for the first-quarter earnings for 2020 also beat analysts’ predictions. American Express reported earnings of $1.98 per share for the first quarter of 2020, which exceeded analysts’ estimations by 17.2%.

The total revenue of $10.3 billion was also 3.7% higher than the forecasts of analysts. This being said, it was 1% lower than the revenue for the same period of the previous year. The reason for that was the low level of spendings during the coronavirus pandemic. Despite that, American Express’ total provision amounted to $2.6, which is a 221% jump, compared to last year’s results.

Analyst stock price forecast and recommendation

According to CNN Money, 23 analysts who provide 12-month price forecasts for American Express Co. have a median price target of $102.00, with a high estimate of $129.00 and a low estimate of $76.00. The median estimate represents a -3.23% decrease from the last price of $105.40.

The same media also shows the recommendations for the American Express Co. stock. The consensus rating among 28 investment analysts is “Buy”. Out of all analysts, 12 ranked the company’s stock as “Buy”, 12 as “Hold”, 1 as “Sell” and 3 – as “Outperform”