Lockdowns helped Sherwin prosper

Article Excerpt

SHERWIN-WILLIAMS CO. $241 is a still hold. The company (New York symbol SHW; Conservative Growth Portfolio, Consumer sector; Shares outstanding: 267.6 million; Market cap: $64.5 billion; Price-to-sales ratio: 3.5; Dividend yield: 0.9%; TSINetwork Rating: Above Average; www.sherwin-williams.com) continues to benefit from strong demand for its paints as the COVID-19 pandemic encourages people to work on home improvement projects. In the quarter ended December 31, 2020, Sherwin’s sales rose 9.1%, to $4.15 billion from $4.04 billion a year earlier. If you exclude unusual items, earnings per share jumped 19.2%, to $1.70 from $1.42. (Note—All per-share amounts adjusted for a 3-for-1 stock split effective April 1, 2021). Investors can expect sales for all of 2021 to rise between 5% and 10%. The company also expects to earn between $8.80 and $9.07 a share. For new buying, the stock seems expensive at 27.0 times the midpoint of that range. Still, the company recently hiked your quarterly dividend by 23.1%; the new annual rate of $2.20 yields 0.9%. Sherwin-Williams is…