Broker tips: AstraZeneca, Laird, Housing stocks, Oil prices

AstraZeneca’s drug pipeline is still “under-appreciated”, according to UBS which hiked its target price for the stock by 10% on Friday.

The bank said it sees a number of “blockbuster opportunities” for the pharmaceutical group in the near term, as it lifted its target for the shares from 5,000p to 5,500p and reiterated its ‘buy’ recommendation.

Numis Securities has maintained its ‘buy’ recommendation for Laird, but highlighted a slowdown in organic growth at the electronic components supplier towards the end of the year.

Numis estimates that organic growth for the year in US dollar terms should be around 8%. “While there was a FX tailwind in the fourth quarter, the organic growth rate in US$ revenue at circa 3% was lower than in the first nine months of 11%, largely due to tough comps and some supply shortages in smartphones,” said Numis analyst Nick James.

Broker Jefferies was one of several to cut ratings on almost all the homebuilders, with Barratt Developments, Persimmon, Taylor Wimpey, Bovis Homes and others downgraded on the view that valuations were becoming too stretched.

The recent collapse in oil prices will undoubtedly have a big impact on earnings in the energy sector, but should generally result in a decent lift to profits for European companies on the whole, according to Morgan Stanley.

“In aggregate, we estimate that even on conservative assumptions a 50% drop in the oil price should translate into a net boost of around 7% to European market-level EPS.”