UPDATE: Bank of America Upgrades Zumiez to Neutral on Increasing Stability Post Winter

Bank of America analyst Paul Alexander published a research report on Zumiez

that upgraded the company from Underperform to Neutral and raised the price objective from $21.00 to $30.00. In the report, Bank of America wrote, "Our Underperform rating was predicated on earnings risk to 4Q and 1Q as trends decelerated, but we now see increasing stability as we exit winter, and we expect a more favorable environment for comps in the balance of the year. Comps were -1% in 4Q12, we expect them to be modestly positive in 1Q13, and we are modeling +2% for the year. We also see mitigating headwinds through 2013 as weather normalizes. However, we note that Zumiez's comps are still well below the prior two year trend (+7%), and are particularly modest for a growth company. With the stock trading at 16x our F2014 EPS estimates, we see limited upside to the stock." Zumiez traded up Thursday 14.46 percent to $28.50 per share at the time of this writing.