UPDATE: Piper Jaffray Reiterates Overweight Rating, Raises PT for PetSmart

In a company note published earlier today, Piper Jaffray & Co. reiterated its Overweight rating for PetSmart, Inc. PETM and raised its price target from $65.00 to $68.00. Piper Jaffray said it made its decisions “following PETM's solid start to 2012. The EPS of $0.85 (vs. consensus of $0.73) and the +7.4% comp handily beat expectations due to broad sales strength across the business. Interestingly, there did not appear to be a single key driver to the quarter which suggests the current business momentum has some sustainability. Full year guidance was raised by more than the EPS beat to a new range of $3.19-$3.25 and management appears upbeat about near-term business trends. We believe PETM has a number of operating initiatives in place which should continue to drive healthy fundamentals for the foreseeable future. We continue to believe PETM is a high-teens EPS growth story for the next couple of years when normalizing for their 53rd week in F12.” PetSmart, Inc. closed yesterday at $55.62.