UPDATE: Wedbush Securities Upgrades Buffalo Wild Wings to Outperform, Raises PT

In a report published Friday, Wedbush Securities upgraded its rating on Buffalo Wild Wings

from Neutral to Outperform, and raised its price target from $78.00 to $100.00. Wedbush Securities noted, “We believe the absence of an uptick in wing costs season-to-date, meaningful menu price increases in Q3, an effort to address the adverse impact from larger-sized wings, and checks indicating continued comp momentum could lead to upside to current consensus EPS expectations for 2H:12. Therefore, we upgrade to OUTPERFORM from NEUTRAL. Absence of expected uptick in wing costs QTD and September pricing at high end of expected range could result in upside to 2H cons. expectations. Wing Tuesday pricing was raised to $0.60 from $0.50 in September, which should result in 3% pricing in Q3 and 4% in Q4, at the very high end of the expected range. We are also slightly lowering our wing cost expectation to $2.00/lb from $2.05/lb for Q4 as we have not seen an uptick in wing costs (despite bracing for one) since July 12th. Our main takeaway from recent calls with CFO Twinem was management's confidence in these factors driving near-term cost of sales below 31%.” Buffalo Wild Wings closed on Thursday at $85.77.