Broker tips: Lloyds, Glaxo, Laird

27th Oct 2011 12:53

Credit Suisse has cut its target price for British bank Lloyds by 22.5% ahead of the firm's third quarter statement due on 8 November.The Swiss broker has increased its 2011 underlying loss per share expectations from 0.3p to 0.6p. Also, underlying earnings per share estimates have been cut from 3.5p to just 0.4p for next year and from 5p to 2.4p for the year after, "pushing back earnings recovery and reflecting structurally higher funding costs". As such, the target price comes down from 40p to 31p.Credit Suisse kept hold of its neutral recommendation.RBS has hailed the third quarter results of drugs giant GlaxoSmithKline and reiterated its buy recommendation and 1,725p target price on the stock.Meanwhile, RBS notes that with a lack of bolt-on deals this year, the company has raised its share buy-back programme to £2.3bn for 2011. After raising its own buy-back forecasts, the broker ups its earnings per share estimates for 2013-2017 by about 1.5% per annum."GSK continues to beat expectations for shareholder returns via more share buybacks for 4Q11. We see this trend continuing into 2012, especially if bolt-on deals remain few and far between," RBS said.Despite Laird's near-12% share price rise on Thursday following its third quarter update, Peel Hunt has cut its target price from 185p to 160p.While Peel Hunt has maintained its current-year pre-tax profit forecasts at £52m, the broker has cut next year's estimate by 5% to reflect a "weaker macro outlook", hence the target price downgrade.A hold recommendation is left unchanged.BC