Wedbush Downgrades Big Lots (BIG) to Neutral

February 25, 2010 11:31 AM EST

Wedbush downgrades Big Lots (NYSE: BIG) from Outperform to Neutral. Price target lowered from $36 to $34.

Wedbush analyst says, "The stock has appreciated 8% YTD (compared with the S&P 500 Index’s 1% drop) and 81% since the market trough last year in March (both basically in line with the dollar store peer group). The company pulled out a strong holiday period exceeding expectations and driving the stock up. While we are extremely favorable on the company’s turnaround efforts, in our view, the model had clearly been underappreciated by the Street. With the recent stock price upside, we now believe future expectations are mostly baked into the stock price. Nevertheless, we remain positive on the company’s SG&A initiatives although we believe the big benefits have been had. In addition, we believe current business momentum remains solid and the company faces easy comparisons in 1H. According to our score card, while balance sheet and cash flow metrics are positive, the company ranks lower on overall square footage growth, as well as overall gross margin potential, in our view....our estimated 2010 EPS of $2.60."

To see all the upgrades/downgrades on shares of BIG, visit our Analyst Ratings page.

Big Lots, Inc. is a national closeout retailer. As of January 31, 2009, the Company operated a total of 1,339 stores in 47 states.

Create E-mail AlertRelated Categories

Downgrades

Stocks Mentioned

Add Your Comment

Name

Subject

Body

Verification can't see the text?
click here to refresh the image.
what's this?