Make note on the last paragraph.
Ratings Briefing - EMC : Goldman Sachs upgraded EMC Corp. (EMC 12.26) to Outperform from In-Line, as it believes the recent sell-off presents an attractive opportunity. Firm thinks their is a strong likelihood that its above-consensus estimates represent the base case for the company, and says that over the last 6 months its checks with users have increasingly named EMC as the vendor of choice in the storage space; target is $15.
What It Means:
Outperform at Goldman Sachs means stock is expected to outperform the median total return for the analyst's coverage universe over the next 12 months (that universe for analyst, Laura Conigliaro, includes HPQ, NTAP, IBM, DELL, STX, SUNW and STK [source: Bloomberg])
An impact call that will invite buying interest as Goldman Sachs has influence and expansive customer reach to move big-cap stocks like EMC
Firm's belief that recent sell-off presents attractive opportunity will pique interest, too, especially since EMC boosted its Q4 sales forecast this morning (after Goldman call hit wires) to $1.8-1.825 bln from $1.74-1.78 bln (consensus $1.747 bln)... revision includes $30-35 mln in sales from Documentum acquisition, which is expected to close Dec. 18
EMC getting pleny of bullish attention of late from analyst community as Briefing.com's Upgrade/Downgrade archive for EMC is littered with upgrades dating back to May 14, 2003... Still room for upgrades, too, as current ratings distribution is as follows: 9 Buy; 6 Outperform; 10 Hold [source: Reuters Research]
Sidenote: Firm also downgraded Brocade (BRCD) to In Line from Outperform, but raised its view of the IT Hardware sector to Attractive from Neutral, noting that 2004 budgets are firming at the same time that expectations are fast becoming more rational.-- Patrick J. O'Hare, Briefing.com |
