Yesterday FBR Research reiterated its Underperform rating on First Solar (FSLR) and this morning Piper Jaffray is holding firm with its own rating of Outperform. The firm has a $127 price target. Hat tip to Street Insider for the following analyst comment:
“Based on strong sector fundamentals, and channel checks with customers, we anticipate an in-line to better 4Q09 given sector strength and sold out conditions. We anticipate reiterated and unchanged 2010 guidance noting FSLR only issued guidance in December. Although we see a strong Q4, we speculate its GM will decline to ~42% given what we believe is lower ASPs with flattish costs. We believe FSLR continues to sell out its production, and thus expect its 2010 guidance will be unchanged. The company is presenting at the 5th Annual Piper Jaffray Conference on 2/23 in NYC…There could be upside to our conservative 2010 estimates…For non farm land ground projects in Germany we estimate a $1.35 panel will be required based on our calculation, and it is unclear if that is baked into current 2010 guidance as, at its analyst day, the company stated that it is “trying to anticipate outcome, impact remains uncertain.” Our EPS cut for 2010 may be overly conservative if FSLR can switch ground based projects to the roof (in Germany) at $1.40-1.55, or if it can leverage its balance sheet and develop higher ASP projects throughout Europe. We believe FSLR’s project pipeline in North America remains intact, and allows a higher ASP than its projects sold to third parties in Europe.”
Shares are up about 1% in premarket trading.
First Solar is a great buy! It continues to outperform analysts opinions & provide great returns for the shareholders. You are stupid not to buy! $200/share coming soon!
FBR Research needs to be labeled as a perpetual sell side analyst on each and every news citation of their opinion. It is deceitful not to do so.
I think those that have read more than a few of my posts over the last year know how I feel about analysts : )