Goldman Sachs Maintains Neutral On Foot Locker Inc. (FL)

Goldman Sachs is out with its report on Foot Locker Inc. FL, maintaining Neutral.

In the report, Goldman Sachs writes "There are attractive dynamics to the FL story: (1) We are in the midst of a strong footwear cycle, with great product coming out of their key vendors, and (2) New management is capitalizing on some execution opportunity, adding juice to FL's relative results - since Ken Hicks took over as CEO in late 2009, FL has been working to improve merchandise flow, broaden assortments and improve apparel, and the results are showing with FL's sales/gross margin still growing strongly as peers' results slow."

Goldman Sachs goes on to add, "However, some of our optimism is already reflected in the shares, with FL trading at its historical PE on our above- consensus EPS; for now we prefer to invest in the product cycle via Buy-rated NKE, which also has an apparel turnaround story and where we believe robust long-term Global growth offers more upside to historical valuation."

Goldman Sachs maintains its $21 PT.

Shares of FL opened Friday at $19.59.