UPDATE: Monness Crespi Hardt Upgrades Priceline.com to Buy, Names $1,250 PT on Solid Upside, Cautious Guidance

In a report published Friday, Monness Crespi Hardt analyst Bill Lennan upgraded the rating on

from Neutral to Buy, and named a $1,250.00 price target. In the report, Monness Crespi Hardt noted, “Upgrading to Buy; target $1,250. We fell for PCLN's conservative guidance more than a year ago and downgraded to Neutral. We kept our rating there because we thought smaller quarterly ‘beats' plus margin erosion would weigh on shares. Many points later, we abandon that view because the market has shrugged off our concerns and because PCLN appears on the brink of renewed margin expansion, notwithstanding cautious commentary to the contrary. Our price target represents approximately 24x our 2014 EPS estimate, a multiple discount to the nearly 30% EPS growth we forecast for next year.” Priceline.com closed on Thursday at $1,022.89.