Stifel Maintains Buy on Nova Measuring Instruments, Raising PT to $13.00 from $11.00

In a report published Friday, Stifel analyst Patrick Ho maintained a Buy rating on Nova Measuring Instruments Ltd.

, raising its price target to $13.00 from $11.00. According to the report, NMVI positively pre-announced that its recently completed Dec. quarter would “fall in the higher range of [its previous] guidance.” NMVI's 4Q13 guidance included revenues to be in the range of $27M-30M and pro-forma EPS, excluding options in the range of $0.10 to $0.17. “Despite this positive preannouncement, we will maintain our current estimates at this time and simply await the results when the company formally reports,” the report noted. “At the same time, we are even more confident that our current 2014 forecasts could have additional upside potential, particularly if TSMC pulls in its 16nm capabilities into 2014. We believe that Nova is poised to once again outperform the industry and 2014 will be another strong growth year for the company. We maintain our Buy rating on the shares.” Some risks to NVMI's target price include volatility of the semiconductor cycles, scales relative to competitors, lack of presence with Intel, competitive pressures in the OCD metrology markets and business operations and incorporation located in Israel. NVMI closed Thursday at $10.54 with shares trading up at 2.33 percent.