Amazon (AMZN) ships hundreds of millions of packages every month. Most of them are cardboard boxes. Does that mean investing in cardboard stocks is a good idea? Let’s talk about it.
Say what you will about Jeff Bezos, Amazon’s business continues to grow every year. They are arguably the most diversified company in America, having revolutionized the way people shop, launched a video streaming service that rivals Netflix, created a profitable cloud computing wing, etc.
Yet despite all of that, they’re trading 17% below their all-time highs and are up only 2.7% in the last year.
If you’re thinking about all the cardboard boxes that arrive on your doorstep every week, and now you want to invest in cardboard stocks, you can start by looking at the shippers; UPS (UPS) and FedEx (FDX) are worth looking at.
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But everyone knows about UPS and FedEx, so there’s no opportunity there to beat the crowd. And I don’t like to invest with the crowd. Instead, I prefer to invest in less-famous stocks, because they have more upside potential. As people become aware of the companies’ growth stories, the additional buying power tends to push the stocks up, making it a low-risk investing opportunity.
So today I want to tell you about a major player in the cardboard box business, but most people don’t know its name.
Cardboard Stocks Investing with a Big Cardboard Box Merger
The story starts with a big merger.
A company based in Georgia merged with a company based in Virginia to create a company with billions in revenues and thousands of employees in more than 30 countries. That company would then go on to merge with yet another peer just a few years ago—this one headquartered in Ireland. Since then, thanks in part to Amazon, revenues at the company (let’s call it Company X) have grown, and the future looks bright—for investors who can see it (in fact, Goldman Sachs just initiated coverage on Company X with a “Buy” rating). With all the focus on Amazon, investors don’t tend to think much about the company that produces all those boxes that go out for shipping.
And it’s not only Amazon’s cardboard boxes that are driving the business; it’s also pizza boxes, six-pack holders for beer and wine, cardboard point-of-sale displays, paper bags, and packaging for personal care and health care products.
In the personal care division, for example, Company X has a group dedicated to designing sprayers for perfumes and other fragrances. Men like differently shaped bottles than women, and older users favor different features than younger users. And the research the company has done enables it to advise fragrance companies on design.
And then there’s packaging for medicine, where the job is much more complicated than simply containing the medication. The company’s best containers help to increase compliance—also known as adherence—so that patients take their medications as prescribed.
This package, for example, uses a tiny microprocessor to not only track when a patient removes the medication but also to record how the patient is feeling at the time.
All told, it’s an impressive product mix, bound to grow as the U.S. economy grows. Plus, there’s great potential for growth outside the U.S. As I mentioned earlier, Company X has operations in 40 countries. And even before its European merger, it entered into a joint venture with a Mexican company that netted part ownership of three corrugated packaging facilities, and then invested in a Brazilian box plant.
There’s a Good Dividend Yield, Too
Also, there’s a bonus! The company pays a dividend.
Company X came public in 2015 but has been trading in its current iteration since mid-2024 after its most recent merger. It began trading at 49 and reached a high north of 56 at the end of that year and the beginning of 2025. Since then, the stock has been trading in a range, but it recently fell 30% from its 2026 highs to new lows late last week. It’s up 12% since.
So who is it?
Smurfit Westrock (SW)
It’s not the kind of company that promises AI-driven, high-flying growth like Amazon, but a company like Amazon can’t operate without it. And while it’s not currently in any of Cabot’s advisories, a good-looking dividend payer would be right at home among any number of Cabot portfolios. To learn more about our offerings, take a look at our advisories here.
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*This post is periodically updated to reflect current market conditions.