J.P. Morgan Maintains Overweight on Lowe's Companies (LOW)

J.P. Morgan is out with its report today on Lowe's Companies

, maintaining Overweight. In a note to clients, J.P. Morgan writes, "Comps came in 100 bps below our forecast, and at the low end of where we thought they could going into the print. EPS held up reasonably well (in-line with our estimate and flat to a year ago though ~5.5% below the Street). 2Q guidance is largely in-line (comps a bit better, EPS bracketing Street for the most part). However, FY11 guidance was lowered $0.06 at the mid-point, or 3.6%, compared to the original forecast in spite of hitting the low end of 1Q (and only missing the midpoint by $0.02). Net-net, if we used a 15-16x multiple on the mid-point (roughly where HD and LOW were trading prior to today) this would put the stock in the $24.00-$25.60 range vs. the close of $25.76 Friday." At the time of posting, shares of LOW were trading pre-market at $24.58, down 4.58% from Friday's close.