This Morning: Day of the Google Price Targets, The Einhorn-AAPL Show, Is Galaxy S IV Delayed?

By Tiernan Ray

Here are some things going on this morning in your world of tech:

It is the morning of the Google (GOOG) price targets. Bernstein Research?s Carlos Karjner raised his price target on the stock to $1,000 from $820, citing an attractive risk-reward trade off. Credit Agricole?s James Lee also raised his target to $1000, from $900, citing the prospect of improving ?cost per click,? the rate it gets paid for online ads. And Deutsche Bank?s Lloyd Walmsley raised his price target to $935 from $850, citing better mobile business trends.

Writes CLSA?s Lee, the company?s ?enhanced campaigns? program promises to simplify ad buying on mobile devices. ?We raise our target price to $1,000 from $900, as we extend our unchanged PE target multiple of 13x into 2015,? he writes.

Shares of Google are up $11.10, or 1.4%, at $803.56.

Shares of Apple (AAPL) are down $1.90, or 0.4%, at $446.95, as activist hedgie Greenlight Capital?s David Einhorn will host a conference call at 2 pm today to appeal directly to shareholders regarding his proposal Apple issue preferred shares with a 4% dividend. That battle, which emerged earlier this month, is set for a vote at Apple?s February 27th shareholder meeting. But Einhorn is also suing Apple in court over the terms of Apple?s proxy statement pertaining to preferred shares. You can listen in to Einhorn?s presentation at 2 pm, Eastern time, at this address.

Note that Reuters?s this morning ran a non-bylined piece describing how Simon Greer, head of the Nathan Cummings Foundation, an investor in Greenlight, said it opposes Einhorn?s stance, citing a letter from the Foundation. The item was picked up by Bloomberg this morning as well.

Shares of VeriFone Systems (PAY) continue to be under pressure this morning after yesterday warning results this quarter will substantially miss estimates, and next quarter as well, the stock currently down $12.18, or 38%, at $19.71. There are multiple downgrades this morning, with Citigroup, Piper Jaffray, J.P. Morgan, Suntrust, and Raymond James all cut the stock to Neutral, or the equivalent. One boutique firm, Compass Point, actually raised its rating on the shares to Buy from Neutral.

Citi?s Philip Stiller writes ?Given the beaten down confidence prior to the preannouncement, PAY has a long uphill battle to rebuild trust and belief in the company on top of ongoing execution issues in a rapidly changing payments landscape.?

Piper Jaffray?s Gus Richard reiterates an Overweight rating and an $83 price target on Qualcomm (QCOM), saying he thinks Samsung Electronics (005930KS) is having problems getting its flagship ?Galaxy S IV? phone out the door because of power issues with its home grown processor. He thinks that could benefit Qualcomm:

?We believe Samsung?s Galaxy S4 has slipped and the Galaxy S3 has been in production a quarter longer than expected,? writes Richard. ?We believe the S4 is being delayed primarily due to power issues with the company?s eight-core Exynos Octa [?] we believe the company is likely to shift more to external sources. We believe QCOM will pick up more of Samsung?s S4 business.?

Qualcomm shares this morning are down 60 cents, or almost 1%, at $64.67.

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/barrons/techtraderdaily/feed/~3/vzN5sFxhYPc/

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