AOL Money & Finance

MdcHoldings posts

Feed

Analyst upgrades 1-23-07: Under Armor stands tall

MOST NOTEWORTHY: Under Armor Inc (NYSE: UA) and Cardinal Health Inc (NYSE: CAH) are today's most notable upgrades:
  • Credit Suisse upgraded Under Armor Inc (NYSE: UA) to Outperform from Neutral with a $65 target and believes that the company is emerging as one of the premier global athletic brands.
  • JMP Securities upgraded shares of Cardinal Health Inc (NYSE: CAH) to Outperform from Market Perform to reflect their expectation for accelerated earnings growth over the next three years.

OTHER UPGRADES:
  • Friedman, Billings upgraded shares of Urban Outfitters Inc (NASDAQ: URBN) to Outperform from Market Perform to reflect positive momentum in URBN's core division, inventory control and easy upcoming comps.
  • Stanford upgraded shares of Vonage Holdings (NYSE: VG) to Hold from Sell on valuation.
  • Goldman Sachs upgraded the US Homebuilding Sector to Neutral from Sell saying the worst may be behind the group, but fundamentals remain troubling. The analyst said the next meaningful data will be from the Spring selling season, 6-8 weeks away.
    • Goldman upgraded D.R. Horton Inc (NYSE: DHI), MDC Holdings Inc (NYSE: MDC) & Toll Brothers Inc (NYSE: TOL) to Buy from Neutral due to lower-risk at this point in the cycle. The Ryland Group Inc (NYSE: RYL) was upgraded to Neutral from Sell.
Analyst summaries provided by TheFlyOnTheWall.com (subscription required).

Housing: To go long or to go short?

Bill Miller, the famed Legg Mason fund manager, was on television last week. He said he is long on housing stocks.

In Barron's Up and Down Wall Street column (subscription required), Doug Kass of Seabreeze Partners said he was short housing stocks - no big surprise there. Kass referred to order cancellation as the reasoning for his bearishness.

Typically, publicly traded homebuilders have cancellation rates of 15% of orders. However, that number has jumped considerably. Cancellation rates of publicly traded homebuilders:
  • Centex (NYSE: CTX) - 37%
  • DR Horton (NYSE: DHI) - 40%
  • KB Homes (NYSE: KBH) - 53%
  • Lennar (NYSE: LEN) - 31%
  • Pulte Homes (NYSE: PHM) - 36%
  • Beazer (NYSE: BZH) - 57%
  • Hovnanian (NYSE: HOV) - 35%
  • MDC Holdings (NYSE: MDC) - 49%
  • Standard Pacific (NYSE: SPF) - 50%
These numbers (from the Barron's article) are so bad that the worst might be unfolding right now.

TheFly's advice, Miller tends to be too early and Kass is often too negative when the worst is already priced in the stocks. I'd say, start following these stocks again, expecting a bottom in the spring and early summer.

The most recent rally is mostly from an oversold condition. I'd wait for another correction and see where the industry fundamentals stand.

Symbol Lookup
IndexesChangePrice
DJIA+30.6910,464.40
NASDAQ+6.872,176.05
S&P 500+4.981,110.63

Last updated: November 27, 2009: 06:49 AM

BloggingStocks Exclusives

Hot Stocks

DailyFinance Headlines

Latest from BloggingBuyouts

WalletPop Headlines

AOL Business News

BioHealth Investor Headlines

Sponsored Links

My Portfolios

Track your stocks here!

Find out why more people track their portfolios on AOL Money & Finance then anywhere else.

BloggingStocks Partners

More from AOL Money & Finance