Stock Update: EMC Corporation (NYSE:EMC) – EMC: Raymond James Slightly Less Bullish as Price Nears Dell Takeout Value

[at Barrons.com] – Shares of storage equipment giant EMC (EMC) are down 6 cents at $26.35 after Raymond James’s Brian Alexander cut his rating on the stock to Outperform from Strong Buy, ahead of the company’s acquisition by privately held Dell, expected to take place sometime between May and October. The stock has simply gotten close to his $29 price target, which reflects Dell’s buyout offer of $24.05 per EMC share, plus a $5.40-per-share payment for the “stub” value of EMC’s 80% interest in software maker VMware (VMW). Alexander expects that the deal will go through when a shareholder vote at EMC comes up this spring: EMC and Dell have been working on integration since November, and business unit heads for the combined entity have already been named. Read more on this. EMC Corporation (EMC) , with a current value of $50.19B, began trading this morning at $26.20. Today, shares have traded between $25.67 and $26.48 per share and has traded between $22.66 and $28.77 over the past year. EMC shares are currently priced at 14.12x this year’s forecasted earnings, which makes them relatively expensive compared to the industry’s 7.63x forward p/e ratio. And for dividend hunters, the company pays shareholders $0.46 per share annually in dividends, yielding 1.71%. In a review of the consensus earnings estimate this quarter, 29 sell-side analysts are looking at $0.33 per share, which would be $0.02 better than the year-ago quarter and a $0.02 sequential decrease. The full-year EPS estimate is $1.87, which would be a $0.05 better than last year. The quarterly earnings estimate is based on a consensus revenue forecast of the current quarter of $5.64 Billion. If realized, that would be a 0.53% increase over the year-ago quarter. More recently, Raymond James downgraded EMC from Strong Buy to Outperform (Apr 7, 2016). Previously, Maxim Group upgraded EMC from Hold to Buy. When considering if perhaps the stock is under or overvalued, the average price target is $28.45, which is 8.59% above where the stock opened this morning. See more in (NYSE:EMC) Similar Articles: Stock Update: EMC Corporation (NYSE:EMC) – Michael Dell to employees: Ignore media reports on EMC deal Stock Update: EMC Corporation (NYSE:EMC) – EMC exec predicts job growth after Dell merger Stock Update: EMC Corporation (NYSE:EMC) – Why Dell may have got a bargain with EMC