UPDATE: J.P. Morgan Reiterates Neutral Rating, Raises PT on Yahoo!

In a report published Wednesday, J.P. Morgan & Co. reiterated its Neutral rating on Yahoo! YHOO, and slightly raised its price target from $18.00 to $19.00. J.P. Morgan noted, “Yahoo! shares have a low valuation (currently ~1x 2013E EBITDA) and we are encouraged by the recent monetization of half of Yahoo!'s stake in Alibaba Group along with subsequent share repurchases. We believe the deal is value creating when factoring in share buybacks, but Yahoo!'s core business remains challenged as the company is losing share of display advertising and has not yet been able to realize any material benefits from its search outsourcing deal with Microsoft. Accordingly, it is possible that new CEO Mayer will lower the bar for estimates over the next few quarters as Yahoo! improves site quality and invests more in the business. Further Asian asset monetization remains critical to the story, but we believe investors are looking for progress in the core business to truly re-visit the stock.” Yahoo! closed on Tuesday at $15.91.