Piper Jaffray Reiterates Overweight Rating, $43 PT for Changyou.com

In a comment released earlier today, Piper Jaffray reiterated its Overweight rating and $43.00 price target for Changyou.com Limited

. Piper Jaffray went on to say “Total revenue, led by 3% q/q growth in online game revenue, was down 0.6% q/q to $136.8mil, exceeding our $132.5mil estimate (street: $132.1mil), reflecting continued growth in core game

[

, the free-to-play MMORPG released in English as

] as well as growing popularity of

, a new webgame launched by 7Road. GAAP EPS came in at $1.22, ahead of our and the street's $1.09 estimate, mainly due to top-line outperformance, coupled with lower S&M ($2.5mil) and product development ($1.1mil) spending because of a lack of new game / major expansion pack launches and less hiring in the quarter. Of note, 1Q operating margins were 58.4%, ahead of our estimate of 51.7%. Changyou.com Limited closed Friday at $24.15.