Analysts at Berenberg lowered their target price on computer services company Computacenter from 3,250.0p to 2,850.0p on Thursday but said the group was “still a long-term winner”.
Berenberg stated that after “many years of outperformance”, both on earnings and share price, Computacenter has now begun to “lag its relevant peers and indices”.
The German bank highlighted that the stock was now down by 35% year-to-date – worse than the FTSE 250 at 22%, the European Technology Index at 29%, and both Softcat and Bytes at 30%.
“While this stock was a preferred name for us at the beginning of the year, it is clear that investors are discounting the shares more heavily for its lower growth profile than some peers and its weaker cash generation in the first half of the year,” said Berenberg.
However, Berenberg thinks there were still reasons to be optimistic and that investors with a long investment horizon could generate “significant returns”. Berenberg also reiterated its ‘buy’ rating on the stock.
Barclays initiated coverage of Aston Martin on Thursday with an ‘overweight’ rating and a 175.0p price target.
The bank said Aston Martin was a high-risk, high reward proposition, not least after extreme share price volatility over the last week.
Barclays noted the shares are up 33% versus before its third-quarter warning and 57% above its low on 2 November, the day of the warning, in the context of a relatively flat Stoxx 600 automobiles and parts index.
“But we see a plausible path to a sustainable business model,” Barclays said. “Product launches (including 2023/24 Sports/GT line-up renewal) should drive higher volume, higher revenue per unit and support AML’s more than 40% gross margin target for new models – so that despite AML’s significant execution risks, our price target implies circa 15x 2025e price-to-earnings.”
Barclays said other risks include lower-than-expected volumes – especially for the DBX – and pricing and continued and new supply constraints.
