What is the broker consensus view on Bp?

'Buy' and 'sell' recommendations from company analysts often catch the attention of investors - but it's worth remembering that city experts can get things wrong. So rather than relying on just one recommendation, a potentially better way of interpreting broker 'recs' is to take note of the 'consensus' - or average - view of all the analysts covering the stock. That way you get an overall picture of what analysts think.

Take Bp (LON:BP.) as an example. Shares in the company have risen by 18.9% over the past month and they are currently trading at 311.45. 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, Bp currently has:

• 6 Buy recommendations
• 8 Hold recommendations
• 0 Sell recommendations

This suggests that analysts are generally upbeat about the outlook.

At its current price of 311.45, shares in Bp are trading at a discount of -17.3% to its 52 week high price. The 1-year performance of the shares has been 20.0%.

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