Some analyst reports:
biz.yahoo.com
"Shares of Sepracor Inc. continued to slide Thursday after another analyst downgraded the stock a day after the drug maker offered a 2007 forecast that disappointed Wall Street.
Shares of Sepracor fell $2.31, or 4.1 percent, to end at $54.75 on the Nasdaq after trading at double their average volume. On Wednesday, shares which have traded between $42.29 and $63.24 over the past 52 weeks dropped 5.2 percent to close at $57.06.
ADVERTISEMENT
The company forecast 2007 earnings per share of $2.25 on sales of $1.46 billion, compared with a Wall Street consensus of $2.40 per share on sales of $1.44 billion, as measured by a Thomson Financial poll. On Thursday, that consensus dropped to $2.38 per share.
Lehman Brothers analyst Richard Silver downgraded Sepracor to "Equal Weight" from "Overweight," because of a less favorable risk-reward profile in the near term, even with the falling stock price. Silver called the company's outlook "disappointing," and lowered his price target to $57 from $59.
James Kelly at Goldman Sachs on Wednesday lowered his 2007 earnings-per-share estimate to $2.42 from $2.51. He maintained a conservative view of sales of Lunesta, the company's sleep aid, given the planned April release of generic Ambien, a competing product made by Sanofi-Aventis SA.
Cowen & Co. analyst Ian Sanderson, who downgraded the stock Wednesday, estimated the company's earnings forecast would need a 21 percent rise in Lunesta sales, but figured sales growth of 15 percent to 17 percent is more likely because of generic competition." |
