UPDATE: JP Morgan Downgrades Cardtronics to Neutral on Decelerating Growth

JP Morgan lowered its rating on Cardtronics

from Overweight to Neutral on decelerating growth outlook, but raised its price target from $30 to $31. JP Morgan noted, "CATM has been one of the better performing stocks in our coverage universe since October 2009, based on a multi-year streak of beats and raises. We are downgrading shares to Neutral (from Overweight) as we believe EPS growth is slowing and future beats will be harder to come by, as the company laps recent acquisitions, which could drive multiple compression. We note our $31 Dec ‘13 PT assumes a 15x NTM target multiple (down from 16x previously), which we think is reasonably in light of management's mid-teens longer-term EPS growth target and the target multiples we've assigned to other names in our coverage universe." Cardtronics closed at $30.57 on Friday.