Analyst Update: Groupon, Home Depot, TripAdvisor

Analysts adjusted their ratings on GRPN, HD, and TRIP

Nov 17, 2014 at 1:16 PM

Analysts are weighing in today on daily deals site Groupon Inc (NASDAQ:GRPN), home improvement retailer The Home Depot, Inc. (NYSE:HD), and online travel portal TripAdvisor Inc (NASDAQ:TRIP). Here's a quick look at today's brokerage notes on GRPN, HD, and TRIP.

GRPN is down 1.8% this afternoon at $7.70, despite receiving an upward price-target revision to $9 from $8 -- to go along with an "outperform" rating -- at Barrington Research. This only adds to the stock's long-term technical struggles, as the shares have lost more than one-third of their value in 2014 -- even after their recent post-earnings surge. On the sentiment front, more than 21% of Groupon Inc's float is sold short, which would take nearly a week to cover, at typical daily trading levels.

HD, which will step up to the earnings plate bright and early tomorrow, is fractionally higher at $98.43 -- as Canaccord Genuity's $15 price-target hike to $93 (and reiterated "hold" opinion) has had little impact. Longer term, however, the shares have advanced nearly 20% year-to-date, and recently took a strong bounce off their 20-week moving average. In spite of this technical tenacity, 45% of the analysts following The Home Depot, Inc. have handed out tepid "hold" suggestions, and the equity's consensus 12-month price target is just a stone's throw away at $99.04. In other words, HD could be on the verge of additional bullish brokerage notes, assuming its recent uptrend continues. For the company's third quarter, the Street is projecting a per-share profit of $1.13.

TRIP is off 1.7% this afternoon to trade at $68.70, following Oppenheimer's price-target reduction to $90 from $99 -- though the firm also underscored its "outperform" rating. Longer term, the stock is off about 17% in 2014, and more recently, has underperformed the broader S&P 500 Index (SPX) by about 33 percentage points during the previous three months. Not surprisingly, traders at the International Securities Exchange (ISE), Chicago Board Options Exchange (CBOE), and NASDAQ OMX PHLX (PHLX) have bought to open puts over calls at a faster-than-usual rate in recent weeks. Specifically, TripAdvisor Inc's 10-day ISE/CBOE/PHLX put/call volume ratio of 1.50 outranks four-fifths of readings recorded in the last 12 months.

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