UPDATE: Piper Jaffray Raises PT to $60 on American Express

Piper Jaffray increases its price target from $58 to $60 on American Express

on solid quarterly results and reiterates its Neutral rating on shares as results were expense-driven. Piper Jaffray says, "AXP reported 1Q12 revenue and EPS of $7.6B and $1.07, which included a ~$0.04 per share benefit from a lower tax rate. Revenues were roughly in-line and EPS beat our $0.99 est. We believe the quarter was in-line with 12.4% Y/Y growth in billed business, continued benefits from low credit losses (2.3%) and improved expense management. We are raising our 2012E and 2013E EPS to $4.42 and $4.81 from $4.28 and $4.70, respectively. As such, we are increasing our price target to $60 from $58 based on 13.5x our 2012E EPS. We remain Neutral on AXP shares as we do not see continued outperformance for the stock." AXP closed at $58.04 on Wednesday.