JP Morgan has raised its price target for Weir Group PLC (LSE:WEIR) to 3,800p from 3,500p and reiterated its overweight stance, calling the current share price an attractive entry point.
The bank said it had come away incrementally more positive after hosting the engineering group's chief financial officer, Brian Puffer, in an internal sales briefing.
It framed the debate around three issues: concerns over market share losses to rival original equipment makers, the growth outlook relative to history, and a heavy second-half weighting this year.
JPM said the market was overlooking differences in portfolio breadth, commodity exposure and market share between the players, which it argued explained much of the divergence in performance.
It said consensus expectations of around 5.8% growth for the 2027 and 2028 financial years looked too low.
That figure sat below the through-cycle aftermarket growth rate of about 7%, implied no significant catch-up in original equipment, and gave no credit for strong software growth.
The bank lifted its own order growth expectations to around 7% for the next two years, raising its 2028 adjusted earnings forecast by 4%.
It expects a roughly 40/60 split in adjusted earnings between the first and second halves this year, against consensus of 42/58.
But it also acknowledged some risk from that weighting, and said the issues were well flagged and more than captured in the shares' recent de-rating.
JP Morgan also rolled its target forward to December 2027.
Weir is due to report first-half results on 29 July.
