Wall Street analysts were racing each other to see who could hike their price target on TJX Companies (TJX 0.50%) first amid store reopenings. The discount retailer reported first-quarter losses as sales were cut in half while stores were closed, but the company announced yesterday that sales were tracking higher than last year after about 1,600 stores have reopened.
However, Loop Capital analyst Laura Champine went the other direction, cutting her price target on the retailer 16%, from $72 to $60 per share.
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Swimming against the tide
According to Thefly.com, Champine wrote in a note to investors she was lowering her pricing outlook on TJX due to the sales declines the retailer suffered this quarter, but was maintaining her buy rating on the stock because all stores that have been open for more than a week have exceeded the sales generated a year ago.
That wasn't enough to keep Champine from also taking an axe to her full-year earnings forecast, as she cut it all the way down to just $0.08 per share from her previous forecast of $2.89 per share.
In reality, Champine's price target cut wasn't so far out of line from the other analysts. In fact, she was probably an outlier before, having set her target so high.
The other analysts from investment firms including Citi, DA Davidson, Deutsche Bank, Jefferies, and RBC Capital raised their targets to a range of $61 to $65 per share from ranges of $48 to $60 per share. Now the average price target of the six analysts is $63 a share, putting Champine's at the low end of the mix.
