Oppenheimer analyst Chris Kotowski upgraded Morgan Stanley (MS) to Outperform from Perform with a $62 price target following this morning’s Q3 results. The stock in morning trading is up 4%, or $1.67, to $45.13.
Morgan Stanley continues to perform well, “and the market has not cared about this,” Kotowski tells investors in a research note titled “Stock Down, Earnings Up!” The analyst views the Q3 report as a “clean beat” and upped his 2019 earnings per share estimate to $5.17 from $5.04 as a result. Despite a string of estimate upticks, shares of Morgan Stanley are down 25% since early March, Kotowski points out.
He thinks the market’s attitude that it is late in the cycle and that financial stocks “are not safe at any price” will prove wrong.
