J.P. Morgan Maintains Norfolk Southern Overweight Rating (NSC)

J.P. Morgan maintained its Norfolk Southern rating of Overweight and price target of $74 in a research report published today. In the report, J.P. Morgan states, "NSC's 4Q10 EPS was significantly weaker than our expectations as shown by operating income which was 9.5% lower than our forecast. Greater than expected costs were the greatest factor driving the downside 4Q and yield growth of 4.2% was only modestly below our forecast of 4.8%. We believe that NSC's 4Q performance is not representative of its broader trend as the impact of difficult weather conditions was exacerbated by tightness in conductor / engineer availability for NSC. We suspect that it will take awhile for the stock to regain momentum but in the medium term we believe that reward to risk is still attractive." Shares of Norfolk Southern were trading at $63.00 at the time of posting, up 0.13% from Tuesday's market close.