What do city experts think about the outlook for Smith & Nephew?

Broker recommendations can be a useful early clue in the hunt for stocks to add to your portfolio. These city analysts know the companies they cover better than most, so their views on whether to buy or sell them are worth considering. And when it comes to an individual stock, what's even more useful is to explore the overall consensus view of all the analysts that cover it...

Take Smith & Nephew (LON:SN.) as an example. Shares in the company have risen by 3.66% over the past month and they are currently trading at 1431.36. But what do the analysts that cover the company think?

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

• 4 Buy recommendations
• 6 Hold recommendations
• 0 Sell recommendations

This suggests that analysts are generally upbeat about the outlook.

At its current price of 1431.36, shares in Smith & Nephew are trading at a discount of -17.1% to its 52 week high price. The 1-year performance of the shares has been -4.43%.

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