Merriman Curhan Ford Transfers Coverage on Gilead Sciences (GILD) to Neutral; Trying to Get the Mojo Back
GILD Hot Sheet
Rating Summary:12 Buy, 7 Hold, 0 Sell
Rating Trend: = Flat
Today's Overall Ratings:
Up: 16 | Down: 7 | New: 23
Merriman Curhan Ford transfers coverage on Gilead Sciences (Nasdaq: GILD) to Neutral.
Merriman analyst says, "Like most of its large cap peers, GILD shares badly underperformed the BTK in 2009. In the case of Gilead, this amounts to ~50 percentage points. To add insult to injury, in mid-December the company announced that it was dropping development of its cardiovascular drug, darusentan, drawing the company’s acquisition strategy into question, and raising concerns about its long-term growth. Despite slowing growth and a relatively expensive valuation, the majority of Street recommendations are still biased to the positive. Until expectations come into alignment with reality, we believe the shares will continue to underperform the sector and the broader averages."
"After a long and successful track record of product development, geographic expansion, and acquisitions, Gilead has recently fallen victim to slowing growth and execution missteps. Gilead Sciences has long been admired as a paradigm of drug discovery and development, as well as business execution. Having grown to a $45B market cap today on the basis of its HIV franchise, the company has recently experienced slowing growth as this franchise matures. In addition, the company has gotten little benefit from its $4B worth of acquisitions...The key to Gilead’s future growth lies in its pipeline, which will begin to blossom in 2011."
To see all the upgrades/downgrades on shares of GILD, visit our Analyst Ratings page.
Merriman analyst says, "Like most of its large cap peers, GILD shares badly underperformed the BTK in 2009. In the case of Gilead, this amounts to ~50 percentage points. To add insult to injury, in mid-December the company announced that it was dropping development of its cardiovascular drug, darusentan, drawing the company’s acquisition strategy into question, and raising concerns about its long-term growth. Despite slowing growth and a relatively expensive valuation, the majority of Street recommendations are still biased to the positive. Until expectations come into alignment with reality, we believe the shares will continue to underperform the sector and the broader averages."
"After a long and successful track record of product development, geographic expansion, and acquisitions, Gilead has recently fallen victim to slowing growth and execution missteps. Gilead Sciences has long been admired as a paradigm of drug discovery and development, as well as business execution. Having grown to a $45B market cap today on the basis of its HIV franchise, the company has recently experienced slowing growth as this franchise matures. In addition, the company has gotten little benefit from its $4B worth of acquisitions...The key to Gilead’s future growth lies in its pipeline, which will begin to blossom in 2011."
To see all the upgrades/downgrades on shares of GILD, visit our Analyst Ratings page.
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