Bank of America Merrill Lynch Maintains Buy on priceline.com

Bank of America Merrill Lynch is out with a research report on priceline.com PCLN and it has a Buy rating and a $660 price target on shares after it reported earnings. In a note to clients, Bank of America Merrill Lynch writes, "Given respective margin, deceleration, and merger risks at Amazon, eBay, and Google in 1H'12, Priceline remains our top large cap in the group. We maintain our $660 PO, which is based on 22x ‘12E adj. EPS of $30.20. The 22x multiple represents a PEG of ~0.70x on ‘12E EPS, a discount to the Internet group. The macro and currency risk to 2012 earnings could cause high volatility in 4Q (ie. pressure on the multiple), but we think long-term share growth will be rewarded." Shares of PCLN are up $17.26 in pre-market trading to $526.26, a gain of 3.39%.