Analysts play catch-up

Quite a few analyst price targets coming down this morning to adjust for a declining market. Not much value there.

Tim Luke at Lehman cuts his target on Nvidia to $25 but likes it on valuation. Conversely, Amtech upgrades it to a buy and says investors are expecting a worse earnings scenario due to pressure from Intel and AMD/ATI than they're likely to see. I still like Nvidia, despite its lousy stock price action. I'm long it and probably somewhat biased.

Weisel downgrades Seagate on margin pressure bringing their numbers below consensus 09 estimate of $2.77. They think Seagate will grow at less than the 4% the overall hard drive market will grow in 2007-2011. I maintain that at $21 that's factored in. It's been pretty disseminated that the end of the quarter was lousy for hard drives. He's got a $25 target on it which sounds about right, though I'm a buyer of the stock on weakness and his downgrade seems to be telling you to get out.

If you've glanced at a newswire, you've seen Microsoft is threatening to lower their bid if Yahoo doesn't respond by April 26th. Yahoo management seems utterly out of touch with reality and this will likely step up shareholder pressure to accept the bid.

Citi raises their rating on KLA Tencor, citing stronger than expected performance relative to peers in a declining capex environment. They say Samsung market share wins will offset weakness elsewhere. Unquestionably, Samsung is a beast. Their memory capex budget is subsidized by their strength in other aspects of consumer electronics like cell phones and flat panels. I think even mighty Samsung will have to face the reality of the unprofitability of memory at some point. That said, this analyst is close with the company and I think his call has to be paid attention to. I'd get out of the way on KLAC if you're short.

Weisel upgrades Apple. His call is pretty much that long-term the stock will enjoy a higher multiple as current fears over weak iPods fade. He raises his target price.