Analyst Comments

Cramer just looooves to be the most outlandish (defined by dictionary.com as "remote from civilized areas") pundit/analyst on the Street, doesn't he?

Remember when Google (Nasdaq: GOOG) was trading over $700 in late 2007 and Cramer was adamant that the stock was headed well over $1,000? Or how 'bout a few months ago when Cramer just had to set the Street high price target on Apple (Nasdaq: AAPL) at $264? Following an article on RealMoney this morning, Cramer's next "victim" happens to be another tech-giant (and, in fact, a member of his cleverly-named "Four Horseman of Tech"), Amazon.com (Nasdaq: AMZN).

In his note to premium RealMoney subscribers earlier, Cramer said that the price action in Amazon this morning was "just so classic bull market behavior that you must sit up and take notice of this." This is probably a good time to point out that shares of Amazon.com have surged 177% year-to-date. Cramer believes that investors should be willing to pay-up for Amazon shares moving forward as the online retailer is demonstrating "accelerating growth, probably higher than the projected 25% growth". As Cramer follower's will know, he generally likes stocks that trade at (on a P/E basis) twice there growth rate. So, applying Cramer's 30-plus percent growth rate on Amazon earnings, he sees the stock trading at a 60 multiple soon. Now, going a little further with the math, times that by his $3.50 EPS estimate for next year, and Cramer now has a $210 price target -- of course the new Street high.

With shares of Amazon trading around $142.20 today, the stock would need to climb another almost 50% before hitting Cramer's new target.

Now hear me out: despite all the times I like to pick on Cramer, I am in fact a fan. I feel he serves as a great entertainment tool in a world full of often monotonous financial statements and complicated equations. But heed this warning... as far as his up, up and away price target calls go, they have yet to play out and sometimes even mark a near-term top in the stock.

An analyst at UBS caused a flurry of speculation around Alcon Inc. (NYSE: ACL) today, sending the stock up over 5 percent after making its case that Novartis (NYSE: NVS) should take out the remaining shares of the company that it doesn't own.

UBS analyst Fabian Wenner said their analysis shows that Novartis will not be able to cover the deal’s cost of capital before 2021 unless it takes out the Alcon minorities on top of buying the 52% stake from Nestle in 2010. Wenner said the reason is "most measures to realize synergies have to be carried out at arms’ length which in our view limits the savings to c40% of the total potential."

The analyst suggested that assuming a deal gets done at a price of $181 per share for the minorities, Novartis would cover its cost of capital by 2016.

Responding to the speculation, Novartis told Bloomberg News that is has no plans to buy the minority shares. Well this is not slowing down the shares as UBS said, "the opportunity costs of delaying a full takeout are too high in our view" and suggests NVS can afford to pay $235.80 per minority share due to the $686 million in synergies. That's a nearly 50% premium from the current market price.

Well even if Novartis said it has no plans to takeout Alcon, UBS is making such an compelling reason for the deal that the company may want to take a look at this options. Speculators clearly see an opportunity as the stock has not slowed down on the denial news.

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Analysts at Sanford C. Bernstein said JPMorgan Chase (NYSE: JPM) may see revenues fall by up to $3 billion if derivatives trades move to exchanges under new rules, according to a report from Bloomberg.

Analyst John McDonald said this could mean a reduction in earnings per share of as much as 20 cents in a "worst case" situation. Derivatives accounted for about 8 percent of JPMorgan’s revenue from 2006 to 2008.

In it's "Top Trades of 2010" report, just issued, Goldman Sachs has made some pretty interesting macro calls. Below are some highlights from the report:

• sees 2010 and 2011 as "rather strong years"
  
• sees global GDP growth of 4.4% in 2010 and 4.5% in 2011
  
• expects lower-than-consensus inflation
  
• says the risk to these calls is that the Fed will raise rates earlier than projected
  
• sees U.S. GDP growth of 2.1% in 2010 and 2.4% in 2011
  
• sees BRIC "real GDP growth" of 9.2% in 2010 and 8.6% in 2011
  
• sees Euro-area GDP growth of 1.5% in 2010 and 1.9% in 2011
  
• sees Japan GDP growth of 1.5% in 2010 and 1.6% in 2011
  
• sees Russian "real GDP growth" of 4.5% in 2010
  
• recommends going long the pound versus the New Zealand dollar
  
• sees "steep acceleration" of U.K. GDP growth into 2011
  
• says Ireland will outgrow its debt problem better than Spain

Piper Jaffray analyst Gene Munster sent WSJ's MarketBeat blog some thoughts on why Apple (Nasdaq: AAPL) sold off so hard into the close yesterday.  It was widely reported that a possible T-Mobile deal was part of the reason for the selling.

Here is what he said:

"I heard four reasons why the stock got hit. 1.) T-Mobile getting the phone not Verizon 2.) soft retail sales 3.) greater competition from NOK, and 4.) Psystar trademark issues. In my opinion investors were stretching for reasons. None of them seem to have enough weight/truth to justify the drop in shares.

My take, there was a big seller for who knows what reason. People got worried they were missing something, and the stock tumbled. None of the mentioned reasons impact Apple's fundamentals."

Shares of Apple closed down 1.5% yesteday, and are up 0.7% today.