Piper Jaffray Recommends Cyberonics (CYBX)

Piper Jaffray analysts Thomas J. Gunderson and Amy J. Sullivan maintained their Overweight rating for shares of Cyberonics Inc

, with a price target of $24 per share. Gunderson and Sullivan said that their positive outlook for shares of Cyberonics Inc were reinforced after traveling with members of the company's management team. The analysts also said that Cyberonics Inc had limited foreign risk exposure because only 10% of the company's revenue is denominated in currencies other than the U.S. dollar. The Piper Jaffray analysts wrote, "Patient growth trend could become more predictable with new sales force incentives: We estimate that new patient growth was up 3-4% in Q4 (April), adjusted for the extra week. But this is "one quarter in a row", as the US new patient growth has been lumpy quarter to quarter, engendering uncertainty on long term growth. For FY11, CYBX management has added quarterly new patient growth to the sales force compensation calculation; this compares to the previous years' annual growth metric that may have contributed to the quarterly lumpiness. We believe if CYBX can sustain consistent new patient growth that sentiment will turn more positive and that multiple expansion will ensue." Shares of Cyberonics Inc were up more than 4% at $23.18 per share during the Thursday morning trading session.