BEST OF THE BROKERS
ENRC
UBS rates the Kazakh miner “buy” with a 12-month target price of £13. ENRC’s results on Wednesday met the broker’s expectations, with earnings per share beating forecasts by 13 per cent due to exceptional items linked to an acquisition. UBS expects the firm’s costs to rise in line with the industry as it undertakes a $2.5bn capital expenditure project this year, which includes expansion in non-ferrous and logistics divisions.
DRAX
JP Morgan Cazenove rates the power generator “underweight” with a target price of 360p. The broker thinks Drax’s shares could slide further in the short-term as the market absorbs the severity of the carbon floor price announced in Wednesday’s Budget, and has reduced its underlying earnings forecast by 12.9 per cent for 2013, when the floor is introduced. The broker estimates a cost of more than £100m for Drax by 2020.
J SAINSBURY
Nomura rates the supermarket “neutral” with a 365p target price. The broker believes that Sainsbury’s stores had a particularly aggressive slowdown in the last three months of 2010, moving from two per cent growth in the third-quarter to six per cent contraction in the fourth, based on full-year figures out on Wednesday. However, Nomura has held its pre-tax profit prediction at £665m for the full-year, as it recently trimmed its forecasts.