Dahlman Rose Lowers Price Target; Reiterates Buy Rating on Consol Energy (CNX)

Dahlman Rose & Co. is out with a research report this morning, where it reiterates its Buy rating on Consol Energy CNX; it also lowered its price target to $51.00, from $54.00. The Dahlman analysts cited the company’s most recent earnings report, which missed both the Street and the Dahlman Rose analyst’s expectations. The miss can be attributed to light low-vol metallurgical coal sales and slightly higher overall cash operating costs per ton. They analysts added that CONSOL continues to offer investors the lowest-cost coal assets in Appalachia in a slowly improving thermal coal market; this should cause CNX to gradually “realize value for product diversification and strong underlying margin growth.” They added that they acknowledge the near-term costs associated with such growth and are making downward adjustments to their estimates accordingly.