UPDATE: Morgan Stanley Raising Price Target On The Hershey Company (HSY)

Morgan Stanley has an Equal Weight rating and a $57 price target on shares of The Hershey Company HSY. In a note to investors, Morgan Stanley writes, "We are maintaining our Equal-weight rating on Hershey but raising our price target from $50 to $57 as a result of higher expected 2011 EPS (we are raising our 2011 EPS estimate from $2.76 to $2.80 – see below) and highest sector multiples since our last revision. While Hershey's results will likely be one of the strongest across the broader food group this earnings season, we believe the stock's valuation (~10% premium to US peers on EV/EBITDA) accurately reflects Hershey's opportunity set. While management's tone on inflation sounded incrementally more cautious and management warned that the majority of the benefit of pricing would not be realized until 2012, we believe that core underlying business momentum and 1Q11 results in excess of our expectations (even when adjusting for the retailer inventory load) should allow Hershey to deliver 2012 results in excess of its guidance range (currently “around the high end of $2.70 - $2.76”)." Shares of HSY gained 64 cents yesterday to close at $57.27, a gain of 1.13%.