Hudson Securities Raises Target On Gardner Denver (GDI)

Hudson Securities raised its price target on Gardner Denver, Inc.

to $62 from $60 after the company reported stellar earnings last week. However, it is downgrading from Buy to a Neutral. In a note to clients, Hudson writes, "We've been arguing for some time that Gardner Denver deserves to trade at a higher valuation that was more in-line with other industrial peers due to the infusion of lean culture into the organization by CEO Barry Pennypacker. It would appear, based on today's valuation, that the company now trades in-line with (or at least at a much narrower discount to) other diversified industrials that we cover such as IDEX Corp. (Buy, $43 target), Graco (GGG, Buy, $43), and Ametek (AME, Neutral, $50). But Gardner Denver has more revenue uncertainty at this time as drilling pump orders may dry up in a few quarters if natural gas stays low. We therefore are downgrading shares to NEUTRAL from BUY based on valuation." Shares of GDI are up $1.34 to $60.02, a gain of 2.3%.