UPDATE: J.P. Morgan Reiterates Neutral Rating, Lowers PT on DuPont

In a report published Wednesday, J.P. Morgan & Co. reiterated its Neutral rating on DuPont (NYSE: DD), but slightly lowered its price target from $47.00 to $46.00.J.P. Morgan noted, “DuPont, via an after-market conference call, provided some insight into business trends for 2013: DD indicated that it planned to introduce a non-GAAP concept of operating earnings, which would exclude non-operating pension and OPEB costs, and planned a $1 billion share repurchase for 2013. The new news disclosed was the company's expectation that the operating income margin of its Performance Chemicals division would decrease 6-7 percentage points in 2013, which we think translates into a ($465) million operating income decrease versus our expectation of ($300) million decrease or by an incremental ~$0.13 per share. DuPont also indicated that the remainder of its businesses would increase operating income at a minimum of a ‘high-teens' rate, which we believe was already reflected in Consensus estimates. As a result, we think that DuPont's EBITDA growth is likely to be about flat in 2013. On this basis, we do not see much appreciation potential for 2013 from the current share price. Moreover, additional reductions in Performance Chemicals EBITDA are not out of the question. We reduced our price target for DuPont from $47 to $46 to reflect the lower rate of projected EBITDA growth.”DuPont closed on Tuesday at $43.69.